Ubon Ratchathani - News (bangkok Post)

[jay-uk]

NORTHERN BORDER

Drug agency expects heroin influx from Shan state (http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/05Sep2007_news81.php)

ANUCHA CHAROENPO THAWEESAK BUTCHAN

Chiang Mai _ About nine tonnes of heroin are expected to be produced in Burma's Shan state this year, the director of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board's Northern Branch said.

Janya Sramatcha said drugs authorities were worried about the surge in heroin production. They feared the drug, which had largely disappeared from Thailand after 1996, would make a comeback.

Mr Janya said authorities had received information that Kokang and Wa ethnic groups, who were major heroin producers, had hired Shan and Palong people to grow opium on around 180,000 rai of land in the Shan state last year.

''We're quite certain that this heroin shipment will be trafficked out of Burma this year. But we don't know yet which routes will be used by drugs traffickers,'' Mr Janya said, adding that northern provinces are still major drug transit points.

Since the beginning of this year, drugs authorities and local police have seized around 115 kilogrammes of heroin in the northern provinces of Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Phayao, Mae Hong Son and Lampang. Around 50 kilos were confiscated last month alone.

Drugs agencies were also worried about an increase in production of crystal methamphetamine, known as ice, in Burma, he said.

Third army commander Lt-Gen Jiradej Kotcharat said production of heroin and ice in the Golden Triangle region would likely increase this year. Soldiers in the North were already assigned to patrol the northern Thai-Burmese border, especially in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Mae Hong Son, he added.

In another development, one of two Lao drug traffickers was arrested with smuggled methamphetamines worth more than 48 million baht in Khemarat district of Ubon Ratchathani on Monday night following a tip-off.

He was identified as Toey Kaewsa, 20, from Savannakhet. Another trafficker managed to escape.

Police found 160,000 methamphetamine pills wrapped in 16 packages in two fertiliser bags. Toey and his friend were going to deliver the tablets to a Thai drugs dealer.

Toey said he was hired by his relative Nang, a student in Vientiane, and paid 100,000 baht per delivery. It was his third drug run.