Police nab two in B300m drugs bust

SAMUT PRAKAN: Narcotics police followed two smugglers’ vehicles from Nong Khai to Samut Prakan before pouncing to seize 500 kilogrammes of crystal methamphetamine, 100kg of heroin and 2kg of ketamine and make two arrests.

Pol Lt Gen Chinnapat Sarasin, the Narcotics Suppression Bureau commissioner, said police had received a tip-off that a large quantity of drugs would be smuggled in two pickup trucks across the border from Laos to Nong Khai.

On Feb 19, two Ford pickups matching descriptions given by informants crossed to Nong Khai. Police followed the two vehicles to Bangkok and then to a commercial building at Sayam Pattana housing estate in tambon Bang Hua Sua of Samut Prakan’s Phra Pradaeng district.

Police then kept them under watch.

On Feb 22, the two pickups left the building and headed south. They were intercepted at a checkpoint in Chumphon province.

A search of the two vehicles uncovered 200 bars of heroin, weighing 100kg, hidden in the engine compartments.

Methasit Bampen, 42, from Rayong province, and Roengsak Techawanich, 46, from Samut Prakan were arrested.

The two suspects were taken back to the building in Samut Prakan, where the police found 500kg of crystal meth, 1kg of heroin and about 2kg of ketamine in a room on the second floor.

The suspects said they were being paid 50,000 baht to collect the drugs from Laos and deliver them to the South.

The commercial building in Samut Prakan had been rented to store the drugs before delivery down South.

Pol Lt Gen Chinnapat said the street value of the drugs seized was about 300 million baht.