Cops arrest man, seize huge pill stashes

A 24-year-old man has been arrested and more than 2 million speed pills, 7kg of crystal methamphetamine, or ya ice, and other drugs seized during a raid on a house in Bangkok’s Nong Chok district.

Anont Laokasem was apprehended on Thursday night at a rented house inside Flora Village housing estate on Soi Surinthawong 44, in Lam Pak Chi area of Nong Chok district, national police chief Chakthip Chaijinda said.

Large quantities of illicit drugs were found inside the house including 2.6 million speed pills, 7kg of ice, 5kg of ketamine, 34,000 ecstasy pills. A pickup truck, a car and a motorcycle were also seized, said Pol Gen Chakthip.

Mr Anont told police that a few days after he met a friend in Samut Prakan who asked if he wanted some work, a man identified only as “Sia” phoned and asked him to find a warehouse to store goods.

The 24-year-old man then rented the house at Flora Village estate, at 19,000 baht a month, to use as a warehouse.

Sia later contacted him and told him to go to Sena Nikhom district in Ayutthaya to pick up a delivery. He drove his pickup truck there. On the way, someone phoned and asked for the licence plate number.

Shortly after he arrived at the delivery point a six-wheel truck pulled up and three men on board threw three fertiliser sacks containing drugs into his vehicle, Mr Anont said.

He was later told by Sia to drop the drugs off at various places in Bangkok, and that someone would come to collect them.

He said he had been paid 700,000 baht for the first delivery. Sia then asked him to pick up a second lot of drugs in Sena Nikhom district. The drugs had yet to be delivered when police raided his house.

The suspect allegedly admitted said he had rented the house for two months to store illegal drugs.

He had planned to use the money he earned making the deliveries to buy a shipping container, which would be decorated and opened as a restaurant in Bang Phli district of Samut Prakan.

Police handed over him to the Narcotics Suppression Bureau. The investigation was continuing.

PATTARAPONG CHATPATTARASILL A stash of money is on display at a news conference on the drug-busting operation at the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) in Din Daeng yesterday. Officers announced the crackdown of a drug network in the South and a man linked to Lao drug...