Thursday, 31 December 2009 11:31 Usa Pichai
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) - Thai authority arrest drug smugglers and seized illicit drugs cost more than 500 million baht (15 million US$) on Tuesday.
Suthep Tueksuban, deputy Prime Minister of Thailand said in a press conference on Wednesday that police arrested two drug dealers Athit Saetao, 26 year old and Kwoungyun Saejao, 28 year old in Bangkok. Both of them are from Chiang Mai, northern province of the country.
“Police has investigated and fake buying 100, 000 methamphetamine in a department store in Ramintra area of Bangkok, then arrested both dealers. After that, police has raided in their house in Bangkhen area and seized drugs 1.8 million pills and other kind of illicit drugs, ” He said, according to a report in Thai News Agency website.
Total value of seized drug is more than 500 million baht (15 million US$).
Suthep added that the dealers are in the network of drugs kingpin Wei Sia Kang, a well known drug figure in the Golden Triangle which straddles parts of Burma, Laos and Thailand.
“Next year, the drug problem tend to increase because Burmese government put a pressure on ethnic group who is drug producer, so that the group would produce more drug and sell to buy weapons, ” He said.
According to a report released in November by United Nations Office on Drug and Crime, “2009 Patterns and Trends of Amphetamine-Type Stimulants and Other Drugs in East and South-East Asia”, said the unstable political situation in Burma in 2009, could serve as a push factor to the current illicit drug production and trafficking dynamics in the region.
With ongoing hostilities between the government and ethnic armed groups, who had a ceasefire agreement, the political situation in Burma in 2009 was turbulent.
The report noted that instability could affect the current illicit drug production and trafficking dynamics in the region. There is a likelihood that these changing conditions will serve as a push factor for increasing the trafficking of illicit drugs and could result in the relocation of clandestine manufacturing sites across the border.
However, New York-based, Human Rights Watch, early this month urged Thai government to end police abuses after a district court in Bangkok on December 8, 2009 found Police Captain Nat Chonnithiwanit and seven other members for crimes in anti-drug operations of the 41st Border Patrol Police (BPP) unit guilty of assault with weapons, illegal detention, and extortion. Each was sentenced to five years of imprisonment.
Nat and his BPP team were arrested in Bangkok in January 2008 for serious offenses committed over a period of three years. To date, 61 people have filed formal complaints that they or their family members were abused by BPP police under Nat's command.
In the case that led to the convictions, Nat's squad arbitrarily arrested Jutaporn Nunrod in Bangkok on February 8, 2007, and then took her to a "safe house" at the Green Inn Hotel. She was stripped half-naked, subjected to electric shock, severely beaten, and had a plastic bag placed over her head for two days in order to extract a confession that she was involved in drug trafficking
"These convictions were not an isolated case of rogue officers, but part of chronic problems in police operations that use violence and illegality to fight crimes," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Police in Thailand have long had sweeping powers and have rarely faced punishment for often horrendous misconduct," according to a report from HRW.
Thailand saw the worst police abuses after then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra launched his notorious "war on drugs" campaign in 2003. During this campaign, Thaksin openly pushed police to adopt unlawful measures against drug traffickers, the report noted.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
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