Three Iranians Arrested At Suvarnabhumi With 1.2 kg Of ‘ice’ Worth US$134,000

[Pakboong]

"Ice" is easily made. There is more to this, as always

No reason to get on a plane with this stuff as it would be just as easy to sell in Tehran. Penalty is similar; Death or life with a confession. This stuff can be cooked pretty much anywhere so no need to get on a plane with it. These cases have all been caught due to anonymous or other tips. Under normal conditions some of them would have not made it out of the departing airports. To suggest that the Thai customs officers are better at catching drug offenders is a bit hard to believe.

There are a couple of countries on our planet who have an interest in making sure the world-wide image of Iranians is a negative one. Rest assured no major drug operation would back these idiots in these amounts and I am sure these idiots could not accumulate enough wealth to actually buy the stuff and fly here with it. This one has more to the story. This wreaks of small time intelligence activity doing their low level street work. Especially knowing that it has just recently begun and was relatively unheard of previously.

Your logic is compelling but how are they convincing the mules to make the trip?

Convincing any individual to do anything is the day job of many agencies. They devote a lot of time to grooming individuals to do these kinds of things. Low IQ, impoverished people are pretty easy to recruit.

[Pakboong]

No reason to get on a plane with this stuff as it would be just as easy to sell in Tehran. Penalty is similar; Death or life with a confession. This stuff can be cooked pretty much anywhere so no need to get on a plane with it. These cases have all been caught due to anonymous or other tips. Under normal conditions some of them would have not made it out of the departing airports. To suggest that the Thai customs officers are better at catching drug offenders is a bit hard to believe.

There are a couple of countries on our planet who have an interest in making sure the world-wide image of Iranians is a negative one. Rest assured no major drug operation would back these idiots in these amounts and I am sure these idiots could not accumulate enough wealth to actually buy the stuff and fly here with it. This one has more to the story. This wreaks of small time intelligence activity doing their low level street work. Especially knowing that it has just recently begun and was relatively unheard of previously.

Your logic is compelling but how are they convincing the mules to make the trip?

I'm thinking the chance to visit some lovely Thai lady's is all it took. People have done a LOT of stupid things for a shot of leg.

That sounds pretty weak to me ... and why Bangkok? Why would one of those countries care about what Thais think about Iranians? Wouldn't they be sending the mules to their own country, to get caught and to sway popular opinion in their own country?

They work many countries. Having a connection in a receiving country makes it easier. Imagine having a Thai customs official on the payroll. When it is the job to demonize a country such as Iran, all levels of the country are in play. Simply discrediting the government is a small part of the job. The street people must also be labeled bad.

[Sabre]

They work many countries. Having a connection in a receiving country makes it easier. Imagine having a Thai customs official on the payroll. When it is the job to demonize a country such as Iran, all levels of the country are in play. Simply discrediting the government is a small part of the job. The street people must also be labeled bad.

Your theory has some merit, but I'm not sure it's complete yet. And why wouldn't Iran be screening these people as they left? Surely they have their own intelligence services who know what is going on....

[SergeiY]

They work many countries. Having a connection in a receiving country makes it easier. Imagine having a Thai customs official on the payroll. When it is the job to demonize a country such as Iran, all levels of the country are in play. Simply discrediting the government is a small part of the job. The street people must also be labeled bad.

Your theory has some merit, but I'm not sure it's complete yet. And why wouldn't Iran be screening these people as they left? Surely they have their own intelligence services who know what is going on....

They arrest them also in Iran, also get people before they left at the airport.

The smuggling is driven by the idea to make some profit, some 'easy' money out of it, i don't think there is a secret conspiracy behind it do make it all happen with the goal to make Iran look bad.

[Pakboong]

They work many countries. Having a connection in a receiving country makes it easier. Imagine having a Thai customs official on the payroll. When it is the job to demonize a country such as Iran, all levels of the country are in play. Simply discrediting the government is a small part of the job. The street people must also be labeled bad.

Your theory has some merit, but I'm not sure it's complete yet. And why wouldn't Iran be screening these people as they left? Surely they have their own intelligence services who know what is going on....

Pretty much everybody who leaves Iran on a daily basis is Iranian. Why would they screen them any more than any other country would screen its own citizens. A bunch of the departures were from Dubai and none were caught in Dubai as far as I know. The main question is why screen them in Thailand. They certainly are not screening foreigners from other countries to the same degree. They pulled these guys out of line and xrayed them. Because they have Iranian passports?? Maybe but I doubt it. If you xray all Muslims passing through the airport the job would be overwhelming. I doubt that any of us who fly in and out of Thailand have ever noticed anybody Muslim, Iranian or whatever pulled out of a line to be xrayed. The Customs people were tipped off.

There have been several caught in parts of Europe recently. Expect more. It is not really a theory. It is the way things work and it is not unusual.

This stuff is not designed to fool critical thinkers.

[meom]

"Ice" is easily made. There is more to this, as always

No reason to get on a plane with this stuff as it would be just as easy to sell in Tehran. Penalty is similar; Death or life with a confession. This stuff can be cooked pretty much anywhere so no need to get on a plane with it.

It might be just as easy to sell in Iran but the profit margin is much higher when selling abroad.

Cooking the stuff can be done pretty much everywhere provided you get hold of the precursors. Main precursor is pseudoephedrine which is much more easily available in Iran than some other places where it is very difficult to get pure pseudoephedrine since the market for pseudoephedrine is tightly regulated now a days.

If you can’t get hold of pure pseudoephedrine you would either have to synthesize it from other chemicals or extract it from cough medicines that contain pseudoephedrine. The latter is the easiest to do except for the logistics involved since you would have to buy pseudoephedrine containing pills from numerous pharmacies without raising suspicion. That might seem doable if you’re cooking grams of the stuff in your bathtub but if you’re into cooking kilo’s the logistics get pretty complicated.

[Pakboong]

"Ice" is easily made. There is more to this, as always

No reason to get on a plane with this stuff as it would be just as easy to sell in Tehran. Penalty is similar; Death or life with a confession. This stuff can be cooked pretty much anywhere so no need to get on a plane with it.

It might be just as easy to sell in Iran but the profit margin is much higher when selling abroad.

Cooking the stuff can be done pretty much everywhere provided you get hold of the precursors. Main precursor is pseudoephedrine which is much more easily available in Iran than some other places where it is very difficult to get pure pseudoephedrine since the market for pseudoephedrine is tightly regulated now a days.

If you can’t get hold of pure pseudoephedrine you would either have to synthesize it from other chemicals or extract it from cough medicines that contain pseudoephedrine. The latter is the easiest to do except for the logistics involved since you would have to buy pseudoephedrine containing pills from numerous pharmacies without raising suspicion. That might seem doable if you’re cooking grams of the stuff in your bathtub but if you’re into cooking kilo’s the logistics get pretty complicated.

Most of what is consumed in Thailand is produced locally with the majority of the balance arriving from other parts of the golden triangle.

You are correct on the logistics which adds more support for the logic of not risking product by flying it through airports. Airports are the most likely place to get caught.

[meom]

"Ice" is easily made. There is more to this, as always

No reason to get on a plane with this stuff as it would be just as easy to sell in Tehran. Penalty is similar; Death or life with a confession. This stuff can be cooked pretty much anywhere so no need to get on a plane with it.

It might be just as easy to sell in Iran but the profit margin is much higher when selling abroad.

Cooking the stuff can be done pretty much everywhere provided you get hold of the precursors. Main precursor is pseudoephedrine which is much more easily available in Iran than some other places where it is very difficult to get pure pseudoephedrine since the market for pseudoephedrine is tightly regulated now a days.

If you can’t get hold of pure pseudoephedrine you would either have to synthesize it from other chemicals or extract it from cough medicines that contain pseudoephedrine. The latter is the easiest to do except for the logistics involved since you would have to buy pseudoephedrine containing pills from numerous pharmacies without raising suspicion. That might seem doable if you’re cooking grams of the stuff in your bathtub but if you’re into cooking kilo’s the logistics get pretty complicated.

Most of what is consumed in Thailand is produced locally with the majority of the balance arriving from other parts of the golden triangle.

You are correct on the logistics which adds more support for the logic of not risking product by flying it through airports. Airports are the most likely place to get caught.

That depends how you define consumption and locally.

Most of what is consumed in Thailand is not Ice but Yaba. Both contain methamphetamine but Ice is a step up with the main ingredient being crystallized methamphetamine which makes it comparable as crack to cocaine for example.

The majority of Yaba is produced in Burma and not much is produced in Thailand itself. Ice is mostly imported from Iran, India and some other places since the Burmese are more focused on making Yaba for which the demand is much higher. This might change though with Ice getting more and more popular and I guess it won’t be long before the Burmese will be into Ice making as well.