The large hauls of drugs seized in Thailand, Australia and New Zealand earlier this year have renewed calls for crackdowns, which go beyond just those three countries.
Traffickers view Thailand as a "transit point", or just one part of their entire transport route, said Narcotics Suppression Bureau chief Chinnapat Sarasin. He added that narcotics trafficking covers several countries, ranging from areas where drugs are produced, kept and traded to the ones used as hideouts for suspects.
Three major confiscations, made between April and August, involved drugs which were not made in Thailand. Authorities pointed the finger at some ethnic minority groups in Myanmar as the producers.
Investigators found they had smuggled crystal methamphetamine into Thailand, where they packed and mixed them with other goods before shipping them to Melbourne and Auckland ports in Australia and New Zealand.
Thai police managed to intercept one shipment of ya ice, the local name of crystal methamphetamine, to the Philippines in an operation which found ex-election candidate of the Seri Ruam Thai Party, Suban Mahachanon, as an alleged accomplice.
Some suspects in the cases were arrested, but others fled to China and Laos.
Recently, some Thais have been also arrested in Japan in another case for trying to smuggle ketamine into the country, Pol Lt Gen Chinnapat said.
As many countries are also involved in this problem, "Thailand cannot solve it alone," he said. "We need to integrate efforts internationally."
Origin in focus
Myanmar is among the first countries his agency has started working with to prevent the influx of methamphetamine from the Golden Triangle into northern Thailand.
The overlapping mountainous area of about 950,000 square kilometres shared by Myanmar, Thailand and Laos near the Mekong River, the Golden Triangle is notorious for being one of the world's major drug production regions.
Nay Pyi Taw is aware of the wrongdoing and has arrested more suspects under the Thai-Myanmar cooperation agreement. "We're going to have a meeting with Myanmar to discuss what Thailand can do to help it suppress drug traffickers living in areas held by ethnic groups," Pol Lt Gen Chinnapat said.
Bangkok will also seek further cooperation with the Myanmar government to help arrest Thai drug suspects who flee to the neighbouring country.
Though the two nations have no extradition agreement, Myanmar authorities can find other legal measures to hand the suspects over to Thai police, Pol Lt Gen Chinnapat said.
"We'll then wait to receive them at the border," he said.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) regional representative Jeremy Douglas said he sees the methamphetamine production and trafficking trend continuing in the near term.
There have been some improvements in cross-border cooperation, but as the regional market and demand have expanded significantly, it is unlikely it will subside any time soon.
"The synthetic drug and methamphetamine situation has reached a crisis point -- hard to describe it any other way. Organised crime has flooded East and Southeast Asia with synthetics in what looks like a deliberate strategy to build the market, and they have been able to do so against a backdrop of poor cooperation and a largely chaotic policy," he said.
Drugs in transit
Thailand remains a country with a high demand for methamphetamine, and the market has expanded and diversified significantly from a ya ba market to a ya ba and crystal meth market, Mr Douglas said.
"Prices are way down and supply is way up -- it is cheaper than 15 years ago. At the same time, a lot of drugs are moving through Thailand to major profit-generating markets like Australia and New Zealand where the price per kilogramme for crystal meth is 15 or 20 times what it is in Bangkok -- maybe more," he said.
"High volume trafficking into Thailand from Shan state to Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai continues, but we have also seen a dramatic shift in trafficking routes this year, as more supply has been moving from Shan state into Laos and to Thailand; and down southern Myanmar and then into Thailand through places like Kanchanaburi," he said.
Pol Lt Gen Chinnapat said the joint cooperation is being mounted in conjunction with attempts to stop drug trafficking gangs from smuggling narcotics into Thailand through both old and new, mostly natural routes.
The gangsters have so far used three major routes to carry the drugs across the northern borders.
However, with more intensive crackdowns, other regions are becoming their new targets.
Pol Lt Gen Chinnapat said, officers have been sent there to stop the smuggling in the western areas.
Justice Minister Somsak Thepsutin said other authorities, meanwhile, continue to tighten drug crackdowns in the three original routes in the North.
One of them is San Tondu village in Chiang Mai's Mae Ai district.
Part of its area, which has previously served as a border trade zone, is a popular route because it is located near a main road, which facilitates drug transport to other parts of the country.
Some members of the Lahu ethnic group living near the Thai-Myanmar border carry the drugs to Tha Makaeng village in the province where another armed group of drug couriers will take them further on to their next destinations, according to a source at the Office of the Narcotics Control Board.
The Wa ethnic group in Myanmar is believed to mastermind the trafficking, the source said.
Officers have also been alerted to another two routes -- the Kio Thapyang and Kio Satai checkpoints in Chiang Rai's Mae Chan district.
International targets
The government's anti-drug campaigns in these areas and elsewhere have played a key role in preventing drugs from being trafficked to foreign countries.
According to Mr Somsak, officers have this year seized 510 million speed pills across the country, 60% of which were in the North.
Three major confiscations of ya ice between April and August also contributed to the overall drug crackdowns, with help from authorities in Australia and New Zealand.
One of the hauls, found coming into the Port of Melbourne on April 7 this year, was described by Australian Border Force chief Craig Palmer as the "largest drug haul" ever seized.
The Thai suspect is believed to have fled to Laos, Pol Lt Gen Chinnapat said.
Thailand is also working with New Zealand, after 452kg of ice were discovered hidden inside a motor shipment on Aug 18.
With suspects and drugs found in many countries, each country, which is using different measures to tackle the drug problems, requires a high level of cooperation with partners to reinforce their fight against one of the world's most difficult-to-solve issues.
"We need to help each other in every possible way to stop it," said Pol Lt Gen Chinnapat.