BANGKOK: For four suspected Thai drug traffickers, the party was over when the police short-circuited an attempt to smuggle 296kg of the party drug, methamphetamine, better known as ‘ice’ in the underworld, into Australia.
The men, aged between 22 and 28 were picked up in a sting operation yesterday at Klongchan in the outskirts of Bangkok, leading to the seizure of the drug worth millions of Ringgit, which was found stashed inside two cars.
“The drugs were supposed to have been transported to southern Thailand where another group of people waited to smuggle it to Australia,” said Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) chief, Sirinya Sitdichai during a media conference yesterday.
He declined to answer media queries whether the drug was meant to have been smuggled first into Malaysia after reaching southern Thailand, but a source disclosed that it was the “most probable scenario”.
According to the source, from Bangkok the drugs would most probably be headed to Hatyai where another group of syndicate members waited.
Drug syndicates have been known to use Bangkok and its outskirts as a transit point before making a journey to another transit point in southern Thailand, namely Hatyai and several other border towns such as Danok.
From these transit points in southern Thailand, the syndicates re-package the drugs into smaller packages before attempting to smuggle it into Malaysia.
“They will divide the drugs into smaller packages as it would be easier to conceal it from border authorities. They will make several trips across the border to minimise any risk of being caught or causing alarm among the border authorities,” said the source.
The syndicate members would most probably target Bukit Kayu Hitam as their preferred entry point into Malaysia.
After successfully crossing the Thai-Malaysia border checkpoint, the syndicate members would be making a dash to Penang to ship the drugs to Australia using the modern port facility in the state, said the source.
Also present during yesterday’s media conference were members of the Australian Federal Police but they did not talk to media.— Bernama