Thai police seize 50 million Ice tablets, one of region’s largest hauls in years

Officers found an estimated 50 million tablets hidden in sacks in a six-wheeler truck they stopped at a joint police-military checkpoint on Tuesday. The occupants of the truck – a man and a woman – were arrested.

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“We’ve not seen major cases here in Kanchanaburi for a couple of years, and never anything like this,” Douglas said. “But it’s also not a surprise given the extreme supply being produced by militias and traffickers in northern Myanmar.”

A 2021 military takeover in Myanmar that unseated the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi triggered armed resistance nationwide, further destabilising the country.

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How Thailand is trying to reverse a festival’s waste problem

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The UN drug agency’s June 2023 report on synthetic drugs in East and Southeast Asia warned that the huge trade in methamphetamine and other illegal drugs shows no signs of slowing down.

Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, who is also interior minister, told reporters that illegal drugs used to be smuggled into Thailand’s northern and northeastern provinces, but had moved to western provinces such as Kanchanaburi because of more intense surveillance and security along the old routes, a point the UN agency had also made earlier this year.

Anutin said increased combat between Myanmar’s military and its foes among the country’s pro-democracy movement and ethnic minority armed groups also increased the smugglers’ risks along their old routes.