Rented homes near Thai border used to store drugs

BANGKOK: Drug syndicates are using rented houses in towns near the Malaysian-Thai border to store their drugs before smuggling their “precious goods” across the border into Malaysia.

This was revealed in investigations following last week’s arrest of three Malaysian drug couriers at a rented house in Sadao district, opposite Kedah’s Bukit Kayu Hitam, where 421kg of cannabis was stored.

“They (the three Malaysians) rented the house to store the drugs. They planned to smuggle smaller amounts of the substance into Malaysia, in packages between 50 and 100kg,” Region 9 deputy police chief Major General Daoloi Muendech said recently.

Region 9 covers most of the provinces in southern Thailand.

From towns near the MalaysianThai border, said Daoloi, the drug couriers would cross the border into Malaysia to bring the drugs to a waiting party.

The syndicates, he said, thought smuggling the drugs in smaller amounts would make it easier for them to slip through the tight surveillance mounted by the authorities of both countries at the border.

Thailand’s anti-narcotics officers have disclosed methods employed by syndicates to smuggle drugs into Malaysia, commonly by hiding it in secret compartments in the vehicles.

They have been known to modify the vehicles used in their smuggling attempts, creating hidden compartments to store the drugs.

Thai anti-narcotics officers have been intensifying their intelligence gathering in border towns to identify houses used by syndicates to store their drugs.

Daoloi said one of the arrested Malaysians had confessed to the crime, but the other two denied any knowledge of the drugs.

“One of them acknowledged to being a drug smuggler and had done it many times before this,” he said, adding that the police had kept the syndicate under surveillance for several months.

The three Malaysians, including a woman, 23, were detained by Thai police to facilitate further investigations.