KHON KAEN: A drug courier has been arrested with than 4 million speed pills seized in Phon district of this northeastern province.
Kittisak Manas, 49, of Saraburi province, was arrested after police stopped and searched the Honda CR-V with Bangkok licence plates that he was driving at a checkpoint in Phon district of Khon Kaen.
Police had obtained information earlier that a large quantity of speed pills would be smuggled from Pak Khat district of Bueng Kan province into the Central Plains, said Pol Lt Gen Yanyong Vejosot, chief of Provincial Police Region 4. Smuggling gangs often made their runs on weekends, said Pol Lt Gen Yanyong.
Police then set up road checkpoints in areas under the jurisdiction of Region 4 to search suspected vehicles.
On Saturday, officers spotted a suspected Honda CR-V arriving at a checkpoint in front of Phon Hospital on Mittraparb Road in Phon district. The driver tried to abandon the car but he was detained.
Senior officers stand next to the seized drugs at a media briefing in Khon Kaen on Tuesday. (Photo: Chakrapan Natanri)
A search found 10 fertiliser sacks inside the vehicle. They contained 4.07 million speed pills.
During questioning, Mr Kittisak told police that he was unemployed and had come to know a man aged 50 at a food shop in Saraburi. He met the man on several occasions and they became close. The man offered him a job to drive the CR-V from Bueng Kan to deliver to a customer in Saraburi for 80,000 baht.
Mr Kittisak said he took the job and went to Bueng Kan on Friday. He drove it along Mittraparb Road heading to Saraburi on Saturday morning before seeing the police checkpoint in Phon district.
He claimed he was not aware the fertiliser sacks contained drugs, adding that it was the first time he had done this kind of work, said Pol Lt Gen Yanyong.
Mr Kittisak has been held in police custody at Phon police station for legal action. The investigation is being expanded to arrest other people involved.