Iranian Man Arrested With 4.2 Kgs Of 'ice' Drug At Bangkok's Suvarnbhumi Airport

[uts]

Iranian arrested at Suvarnabhumi Airport for smuggling 42kg of 'ice'

well done customs, I hope they concentrate more on the drug smugglers than ex-patriates or thai trying to bring their own personal possesions or a small contraband into thaiand.

it has grown from 4.2 to 42kg (but that would be more than can take be taken into the hold luggage)

the news was already a few hours ago on thai tv, but no pictures, just a commentary from the journalist from the airport.

btw recently I had a nice experience with customs at bkk airport - as all luggage was screened I was couth with some stuff for sale in thailand, wanted to give a small gift as a "thank you" for a lenient treatment but it was refused.

it has grown from 4.2 to 42kg (but that would be more than can take be taken into the hold luggage)

Not if he was flying fist class

---------------------------------

It wouldn't matter if it was 0.42 kgs in lieu of the other guesses.

The penalty still would be the same.

Is this the expression "taking coals to Newcastle?"

or

"Selling refrigerators to Eskimos?"

There must be a big organisation behind this "mule".

The risks are great, but so are the penalties, and the rewards, if successful.

[sunray69]

I live in holland and can tel you first hand that legallizing drugs ( to a certain level, the users level) and giving it no priority in criminal justice will result in much lower criminal rate and more importnantly way less drugs users!!! yes people while most kids in highschools of paris and london smoke weed etc and get in the criminal circuit etc. In holland kids can go to a coffeshop buy weed smoke it there play a game of pool and go home and the drug use is limited,is of recreational nature and mostly does not go on for a long time. While the other countries have way bigger problems with drugs using individuals.

I totally agree with you !

[tracer]

Legalise, tax and regulate.

Silly laws can't compete against this black market.

legalize Ice ? wow... not such a good idea mate

definitely not a good idea!

I'm with makescents. Prohibition has clearly not worked. Harsher penalties basically result in higher prices, poorer quality product (overdoses and harmful adulterants), and extreme criminal activity, while use remains widespread.

If the drug trade were legalised and taxed heavily (as alcohol and tobacco are), this would result in a massive tax windfall for the government. This could be plowed straight back into healthcare, rehab, and harm prevention. Thus, the junkies pay for their own treatment, and the criminal element disappears as a bonus.

Sure not dump it back into THOSE things??

healthcare, rehab and harm prevention: stupid use of a windfall...

THEY use and sell it, their problem!

[witsawakorn]

Why would anyone smuggle crystal meth into Thailand ?

The golden triangle, former number one heroin producer in the wold is now one of the top crystal meth producer in the world (so I read).

I wonder why anyone would want to bring the stuff into the kingdom ? it wouldn't have surprised me if the guy was leaving thailand with Ice... any ideas ?

Maybe he bought it elsewhere and was returning it for a quality complaint........

You could be right it doesn't even look like ice. Ice is crystalline hence the name crystal meth. The stuff in the photo looks more like milk powder. Also talk about "coal to Newcastle"

[anon8]

yes, witsawakorn, this is not the 'real' meth. it is slightly less potent local answer to meth.

meth in US and western Europe looks like salt.. or sugar, like white chrystal. Ice and other junk in Thailand often looks brownish, yellowish, even pink.

The process to make 'clean' meth is a bit longer and requires some components that are harder to get, hence the short cuts.

One thing, this 'ice' and other amphetamine substances are increadably cheap and easy to produce, makes one wonder why even transport this sh*t across boarders.. it is usually 'manufactured' in any given basement, farm..

oh, about legalizing this.. maybe.. but then isolate all users to an island, meth is probably the most destructive drug there is, more so than heroin

[alex_aka_P]

crystal methamphetamine, commonly known as "ice"

Id.iots with lack of knowledge...

ICE is NOT a metha. ICE is a cocaine hydrocloride (C17H21NO4), named by the feeling while powdering your nose by...

Metha hydro (C10H15N) is commonly known as pervithine (also a "screw", or a "meth", or a "speed").

Metha is much, MUCH more dangerous than a cocaine - in ruining your body and mind. It is also a thousand times cheaper than a good thread of Colombian cocaine. Meth is VERY popular among low-class youngs with no money even for a beer - with an expected results......

Hope that one pusher get a death sentence. Som nai na!!

Edited January 6, 2010 by alex_aka_P

[moe666]

Sorry high taxes doesn't stop the smuggling of cigirettes in the US, they are smuggled from the produceing states of the south (lower taxes) to the northeast states (higher taves).

[Jonathanpattaya]

Somone has got this decade off to a bad start.

[elcent]

Hamas, Hezbollah comes to mind.

[Brewsta]

"following a tip off" what a classic ! the guy has been sold out while on the same plane 5 other guys went through with 10kg each ......

No doubt about it ! You hit the nail on the head ! It's a common ploy by smugglers. The Nigerians have taken to sacrificing their own and bringing out the big load with other sherpas. Maybe he was one of them?I am in Nigeria often. You can bring ANYTHING you want out of there with no search. ANYTHING! A small bribe of 1000 Naira, about $6.67 U.S. will get you through any inspections. They actually encourage it. Some come straight out and ask you for the money and then send you through. Not until the civilized world demands compliance from these renegade countries will there ever be a change in the drug problems.

Drug problems are no more than law problems. Coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, along with every prescription med out there are legal... Man makes a law to make other men criminals. As an adult I do not want anyone else telling me what I can and can't do with my own body, whether with drugs, driving with no helmet or seat belt, or in my bedroom, thank you very much!

"...with my own body..." !! Great if you cause no harm to others by your actions - surely that rarely happens. IMHO, until we all live in individual 'bubbles', then 'personal anarchy' as you individually appear to want is just an adolescent pipe-dream we all would love.

Please do not be offended, but DO stay in the real world. It appears to be the only game in town.

regards and Reality sucks,

Brewsta

[Brewsta]

I live in holland and can tel you first hand that legallizing drugs ( to a certain level, the users level) and giving it no priority in criminal justice will result in much lower criminal rate and more importnantly way less drugs users!!! yes people while most kids in highschools of paris and london smoke weed etc and get in the criminal circuit etc. In holland kids can go to a coffeshop buy weed smoke it there play a game of pool and go home and the drug use is limited,is of recreational nature and mostly does not go on for a long time. While the other countries have way bigger problems with drugs using individuals.

I totally agree with you !

ditto......

[Gats]

Legalise, tax and regulate.

Silly laws can't compete against this black market.

Geez that's the naivest thing I've ever heard. You might get some sympathy about that with weed or kids playing with coke, but very little sustained ice use permanently destroys the brains ability to feel happy... I guess you think that somebody else should pay for the anti-depressants those who are lucky enough to get off it require for the rest of their lives?

Yes, i've personal experience with users and yes i've tried other not-so-legal things, and i can say for sure that ice is the most dangerous substance that can be abused that exists today. It's insidious ability to "disable" happiness forever is remarkable. Read up on it. Ice should never be legalised and never be tollerated. Registering people who buy it's raw materials in Australia has slowed it's use down very successfully, but even the very liberal Australia was on the brink of a crisis with that garbage.

Utterly rediculous comment when it comes to ice. Sorry, but that's a fact, not an opinion.

[Gats]

i was writing a commect defending a certain type of legalization of drugs but lost it by pushing on the wron button

I live in holland and can tel you first hand that legallizing drugs ( to a certain level, the users level) and giving it no priority in criminal justice will result in much lower criminal rate ..

Holland, weed, liberalism, support vs prosecution blah blah ICE is not anything like other drugs. Even coke addicts in psycosis can fully recover with only a higher risk of heart disease later in life. ICE users (for as little as a few months) are chemically UNABLE TO BE HAPPY! it destroys the receptors in the brain.

Keep politics out of it. This drug is not debatable and needs to be eradicated.

[asean]

Legalise, tax and regulate.

Silly laws can't compete against this black market.

50/50 on that one, but I hear what you say. It's a war that will likely never be won.

Only thing is, would alcohol and cigarettes be legalised if introduced now? I doubt it.

i agree that legalising is a good idea in some cases but i have seen first hand what ice does to people and it should not be legalised. You become a walking corpse. Many beautiful young lives destroyed and wasted.

[zaxusa]

4.2 kg's of ice, sound like he going for life...

[Brewsta]

Legalise, tax and regulate.

Silly laws can't compete against this black market.

50/50 on that one, but I hear what you say. It's a war that will likely never be won.

Only thing is, would alcohol and cigarettes be legalised if introduced now? I doubt it.

i agree that legalising is a good idea in some cases but i have seen first hand what ice does to people and it should not be legalised. You become a walking corpse. Many beautiful young lives destroyed and wasted.

as I said earlier, read any selection of newspapers, esp. in USA where ice is becoming an insidious, major problem, and you will back off any legalising strategy IMMEDIATELY !! Read about this invidious poison and see what a nightmare the last few posters (say that they) have seen first hand.

Brewsta

[asean]

out of interest. if you are caught with 0.3grams you are considered a user and can face 6 months to 2 years. If you have 0.001 gram more than that you are a dealer and automatic 5 years. 20grams (before appeal) by the book is life to death. A colleague's 21 year old secretary is facing 5 years for 0.392 grams in her handbag. be warned. If you get caught buy your way out asap at the police station before it gets in the court system. Once in the court system it is too late.

[Moebius87]

Legalise, tax and regulate.

Silly laws can't compete against this black market.

legalize Ice ? wow... not such a good idea mate

definitely not a good idea!

Does the OP even know what crystal meth is and what it can do? Google "faces of meth" and you'll see exactly what you are trying to advocate here. There's also a Nat Geo documentary on crystal meth entitled "The World's Most Dangerous Drug". Makes you wonder why it's called that...

The whole notion of giving up on "good" competing against all these "bad" things going on in the black market is just another roundabout way of confirming what the old quote says... "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

— Möe

[Brewsta]

Legalise, tax and regulate.

Silly laws can't compete against this black market.

legalize Ice ? wow... not such a good idea mate

definitely not a good idea!

Does the OP even know what crystal meth is and what it can do? Google "faces of meth" and you'll see exactly what you are trying to advocate here. There's also a Nat Geo documentary on crystal meth entitled "The World's Most Dangerous Drug". Makes you wonder why it's called that...

The whole notion of giving up on "good" competing against all these "bad" things going on in the black market is just another roundabout way of confirming what the old quote says... "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

— Möe

as the OP says, Google it! But not before bedtime if you want a peaceful nights sleep

Brewsta

[walterego]

There seems to be a lot comming from Iran into a variety of countrys. Govt sponsored prehaps? Funding for a nuclear program or WMDs?

[ericthai]

What a muppet!! Smuggling drugs through Dubai & Thailand, 2 countries with probably the strictest drug laws in the world.

Oh well, another candidate for an episode of banged up abroad.

No. Not when compared with Laos, Malaysia and Singapore. Not even close.

right...no drug law is stricter than the singapore law

Really?? I think Vietnam is very strict, last I heard they do put people to death for drugs.

[Jirapa]

I do not know much more about the natural "ice" than about this Ice, but it looks to me that this is certainly NOT 42 kg but probably something like 4.2 Kg. But than again, the Nation employs people who are not that good with numbers anyhow. They probably recruited them under Thai teachers.

Well if you squeezed 42Kg of sugar into a suitcase you might be able to put a T shirt and a pair of shorts over the top of it to try to hide the contents and just about be able to zip up the suitcase so we can take it the actual amount was 4.2Kg sewn into the case. The photo seems to confirm that! My mate works for the Thai Narcotics Supression Bureau who tells me there's enough of that shit being made here or imported from Laos or Burma so why anyone would be stupid enough to smuggle it in through a Thai airport from Dubai is beyond me? What an idiot!

[Jirapa]

There seems to be a lot comming from Iran into a variety of countrys. Govt sponsored prehaps? Funding for a nuclear program or WMDs?

Not at all. Iran doesn't need some plonker with 4.2Kg of Ice in a suitcase to fund it's nuclear/bomb program. They've got the money already they just need to get hold of the raw elements to do it. They've already placed an order in Kazakstan (I think it's Kazakstan but not sure?) for tonnes of Uranium orr.

It's usually terrorist organisations or drug cartels who get patsies carrying such small amounts across borders in suitcases as it can fund quite a few guns and amo but not a nuclear program.

[gunnyd]

What a muppet!! Smuggling drugs through Dubai & Thailand, 2 countries with probably the strictest drug laws in the world.

Oh well, another candidate for an episode of banged up abroad.

No. Not when compared with Laos, Malaysia and Singapore. Not even close.

right...no drug law is stricter than the singapore law

Really?? I think Vietnam is very strict, last I heard they do put people to death for drugs.

Per capita Singapore executes more people than Saudi Arabia. Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3398043.stm They have a low threshold for a drugs case to become a capital crime. They have mandatory execution by hanging for drug smuggling. And like the Chinese they do not release the statistics on how many they execute.

Personally I am of the opinion that all drugs should be legalized. Yes ice/meth/yaaba/shabu (same same different name), opium, heroin, and many other drugs are scourges on people and their families suffer. But does heavy handed punishment stop or even slow the flow of drugs? NO The amount of drugs that are seized world wide are higher now that they ever were yet drugs are easier and cheaper to purchase. Prison doesn't stop drug use one bit. The mules that South East Asian, Middle Eastern, and Chinese governments execute do not produce the drugs. The real people who make money on the drug trade never go through an airport or border crossing with drugs. They pay a pittance to some poor bastard to do it for them.

All drugs must be legalized, not just Marijuana, ALL drugs if the worlds governments hope to stop the criminal underworld who really profit from the drug trade.

And to all of you that think ice is such a scourge that it must be kept illeagal, take a look out onto the streets. Alcohol and alcoholism causes much more misery, heath problems, and death than illegal drugs ever have or ever will. And we already have proven that Prohibition of alcohol was a complete failure that created violent alcohol smuggling rings and killed many from poor quality "bathtub gin".

Legalizing eliminated the black market, protects against out and out poison being sold, and can be heavily taxed to provide rehabilitation for those who are ready and willing. This arrest will not keep one person out there tonight from finding someone who will sell them the drugs that they want. Unless you execute everybody you will not stop drugs.

[anon8]

gunnyd, I get your point, but..

say, all illigal substances are legal beginning of next week, they can be bought at 7-11 were shops have installed new counters, next to cigarettes, covered with aluminum curtains and everything. My Thai neighbour's kids go to night club, 5 guys, all around 15-16. As usual, before going to club they get drunk, only this night they decide to buy some Yaba at 7-11. These boys go out and get waisted on most nights. Now fast forward 6 months. How many of these boys are alive? Maybe all, maybe none. How many are fuc'ed for life? All of them. This kind of damage is impossible with any legal drug, this damage is GUARNTEED with 6 month of regular ice, yaba use.

Making meth and heroin legal has no upside, NONE.

Quote from you: 'Alcohol and alcoholism causes much more misery, health problems and death than illegal drugs ever have or ever will..'

You can't be serious!

[asean]

Gunnyd, you are wrong wrong wrong. I know what damage alcohol "can" do. You obviously have not spent any close up time with ice addicts. I watched a 21 year old healthy intelligent beauty turn into a hairless, rotten toothed, slurring, sunken eye socketed, bony 62 year old in less than four months.

I was once a subcriber to the "if beer were free there would be no pubs" school of thought too. But then i met Ice and its victims. 98% of the women in Bankhen prison are there for drug offences. I visit there often as legal counsel. Cells which were built for 25 women now house 84 sleeping on their sides on the floor.

I agree with you that is the wrong ones in jail but legalising ice is off the table. You think you've shaken it but six months later your hooked again. THere is an unofficial estimate that over a million thai school children are on it.

Ice has destroyed New Zealand from top to bottom and Canada is barely coping with it.

[Virgil]

Many of these drugs are not for consumption by local Thai and tourists. They're destined for Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Thailand is simply on the way.

[brandy]

This Ice is going to destroy the world if it isn't rained in. So many countries have such a huge problem with it. In Australia they are trying to blame the booze for the rise in violence but anyone with half a brain can see the damage this crap is doing. I hope he gets the death sentence

[shawndoc]

Stupid question time, is Yah Bah the same as Ice. I know they're both a form of amphetamine, but google searches don't turn up much detail on exactly what Yah Bah is.

[thaiedward]

Legalise, tax and regulate.

Silly laws can't compete against this black market.

legalize Ice ? wow... not such a good idea mate

I quite agree. While heroin (opium), cocaine and meth all interfere with normal synaptic reception/transmission, no 'wreckreational' substance can destroy neural-pathway operations more efficiently than 'speed' or 'ice'. Plus, there's no road home from the use/abuse of any of it.