A routine patrol along a back road near Thailand’s border with Myanmar turned into a high speed chase and one of the year’s largest drug seizures, after officers discovered 600 kilogrammes of crystal methamphetamine stuffed inside straw sacks in an abandoned SUV.
The Chiang Saen Police Station commander had ordered officers to step up checks in the area, and yesterday, August 21, a patrol from the Ban Dai police post spotted a black Mitsubishi seven seat SUV with Chiang Rai plates on a secondary road linking Mae Sai and Mae Chan districts. The route runs deeper into the country, away from the border.
Officers signalled the vehicle to stop. Instead, the driver accelerated and sped off toward Mae Chan.
Police gave chase until the SUV turned into a car park in Ban Dai, in the Sri Don Mun subdistrict of Chiang Saen district. The occupants abandoned the vehicle and ran on foot before officers could reach it.
A search of the SUV turned up 30 straw sacks packed inside. Officers opened them and found vacuum sealed blue plastic bags, each stamped with a “Golden Junk Boat 888” logo, a marking commonly used on methamphetamine trafficked through the Golden Triangle region.
Testing confirmed the bags contained Category 1 narcotics, understood to be crystal methamphetamine, with a combined weight of approximately 600 kilogrammes. The seized drugs were handed to Chiang Saen Police Station investigators for further action, along with efforts to track down the fleeing suspects and any wider network behind the shipment.
Police later confirmed they had located one of the men connected to the vehicle. He was named as 24 year old Phanuphong, whose surname was withheld, from Nakhon Ratchasima province. He was found hiding in a villager’s orchard around one kilometre from where the SUV had been abandoned. He is being questioned to establish his role in the case.
In another separate incident, Joint police task force seized eight million methamphetamine pills hidden in a Chiang Rai cemetery, part of a cross-border trafficking route from Myanmar through Laos. Each pill bore a red ‘999’ stamp. A Laos-based fugitive known as Long allegedly financed the shipment.
The story Chiang Saen car chase ends in ice bust as seen on Thaiger News.
