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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Thailand Used as Transit Point for Transport of Illegal Drugs

    BANGKOK (NNT) - The Ministry of Justice said Thailand has been used by drug traders as a hub and transit point for the transport of illegal drugs to various countries, particularly for the smuggling of crystal methamphetamine, or ice, and heroin.


    Minister Somsak Thepsuthin said Thailand is rarely used as a drug production base, due to its severe penalties for drug production and trade. Most of the drugs are produced by minority groups in the Golden Triangle area of Myanmar and smuggled into Thailand via many routes.


    He said crystal methamphetamine and heroin, transported through Thailand, are destined for 19 countries and territories, including China, Macau, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, Israel, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.


    The minister said there are three main groups smuggling drugs from Thailand to other countries. The first group are traders from countries in West Africa, the second comprise Thai nationals and minority groups, and the third are foreigners who come to Thailand to buy, sell and smuggle the drugs out of the country.


    According to Mr. Somsak, methods of drug smuggling have also changed. The drugs were found to have been sent using private delivery companies and sold on social media platforms, such as Line and Facebook. Drug money is then transferred through cash deposit machines or internet banking.


    National News Bureau Of Thailand

  2. #2
    Thailand Expat russellsimpson's Avatar
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    I don't know about the veracity of the comment from the Office of the Ministry of Justice. Thailand is considered a very high risk country in terms of drug trafficking. It would seem a strange choice of drug 'transit' countries.



    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    Minister Somsak Thepsuthin said Thailand is rarely used as a drug production base

  3. #3
    Making people dance. :-)
    Edmond's Avatar
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    ^ The article sounds about right.

    Most/nearly all are produced in the Shan states and transported into Thailand.

  4. #4
    Hangin' Around cyrille's Avatar
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    Barely a night goes by without someone being stopped bringing stuff in, russ.

    Do you ever read the news stories here?

    Based on recent posts maybe you read them and immediately forget them?

    I do think this guy's comments are underestimating domestic demand, which he seems to gloss over completely.

  5. #5
    Thailand Expat russellsimpson's Avatar
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    Maybe I require a more careful read Cy.

    I'll keep an eye out.

  6. #6
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    Farang Ky Ay's Avatar
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    Thammanat, the deputy agriculture minister with a history of dug smuggling abroad should give his insights on this.

  7. #7
    กงเกวียนกำเกวียน HuangLao's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Edmond View Post
    ^ The article sounds about right.

    Most/nearly all are produced in the Shan states and transported into Thailand.

    ...and been of this nature forever.
    So, what's new?

  8. #8
    Making people dance. :-)
    Edmond's Avatar
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    People may like this book.

    Thailand's Opium: The Fruits of Victory

    Banned by the CIA in the 1970s.

    Thailand's Opium: The Fruits of Victory

    This bit about the head of the police and head of the army is quite good.

    The "opium war" between Phao and Sarit was a hidden one, with almost all the battles concealed by a cloak of official secrecy. The most comical exception occurred in 1950 as one of General Sarit's army convoys approached the railhead at Lampang is northern Thailand with a load of opium. Phao's police surrounded the convoy and demanded that the army surrender the opium since antinarcotics work was the exclusive responsibility of the police. When the army refused and threatened to shoot its way through to the railway, the police brought up heavy machine guns and dug in for a fire-fight. A nervous standoff continued for two days until Phao and Sarit themselves arrived in Lampang, took possession of the opium, and escorted it jointly to Bangkok, where it quietly disappeared.
    By 1955 Phao's National Police Force had become the largest opiumtrafficking syndicate in Thailand, and was intimately involved in every phase of the narcotics traffic; the level of corruption was remarkable even by Thai standards. If the smuggled opium was destined for export, police border guards escorted the KNIT caravans from the ThailandBurma border to police warehouses in Chiangmai. From there police guards brought it to Bangkok by train or police aircraft. Then it was loaded onto civilian coastal vessels and escorted by the maritime police to a mid-ocean rendezvous with freighters bound for Singapore or Hong Kong, (203) However, if the opium was needed for the government Opium Monopoly, theatrical considerations came to the fore, with police border patrols staging elaborate shoot-outs with the KNIT smugglers near the Burma-Thailand frontier. Invariably the KMT guerrillas would drop the opium and flee, while the police heroes brought the opium to Bangkok and collected a reward worth oneeighth the retail value. (204) The opium subsequently disappeared. Phao himself delighted in posing as the leader in the crusade against opium smuggling, (205) and often made hurried, dramatic departures to the northern frontier, where he personally led his men in these desperate gun battles with the ruthless smugglers of slow death.
    A bit more about the father of the RTP.
    Phao Siyanon - Wikipedia


    Phao was promoted to the position of director of the police in 1951, by which time he had become one of the country's all-powerful triumvirate. A client of the CIA, Phao received funds and hardware to build his personal fortune, as well as to turn the police into an alternative force to oppose his military rival, Sarit Thanarat.

    Phao established an intimate circle of police officers, known generally as the "Knights of the Diamond Ring", which was notorious for its treatment of opponents of the government and the police generals - even resorting to assassination and murder. Their crimes were many:

    * In March 1949, three MPs from Isaan and an associate, all one-time disciples of the exiled Pridi, were arrested on charges of treason. They were shot dead by their police escort while supposedly being transferred from one jail to another.

    * On December 12, 1952, Tiang Sirikhanth - MP for Sakon Nakhon, a leading Seri Thai member, and an opponent of the government - was arrested with four of his associates. They were murdered (allegedly by strangulation in a police station) and their bodies burned in a forest in Kanchanaburi Province.

    * A successful newspaper publisher, Ari Liwara, refused to sell out to Phao and was killed in March 1953.

    * In 1954 Phon Malithong, MP for Samut Sakhon who provided evidence of corruption against Phao in Parliament, was in found tied to a concrete pier in the Chao Phraya River, having first been strangled.


    Phao was extremely wealthy. He demanded protection money from businessmen, rigged the gold exchange, and blackmailed corporations into giving him huge shareholdings. He also profited greatly from the opium trade.

    Police units transferred opium from the poppy fields of the Golden Triangle to Bangkok, ready to be exported. Trucks, planes, and boats which had been supplied to the police by the CIA, were instead used to move opium, which the police carefully guarded.

  9. #9
    Banned

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    Quote Originally Posted by Edmond View Post
    Banned by the CIA in the 1970s.

    yep and some say the vietnam war was about the cia wanting to get control of the drug trade.


    afghanistan? the CIA boys wanted to get in there as the poppy fields needed to used to flood the world with opium.


    it's interesting that the stories of the 911 hijackers (hardcore Muslims who hate America) were in Florida shagging hookers while blowing coke up their noses before they boarded planes and skillfully guided large planes into the twin towers.


    hmmm

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