Drug runners are getting more and more savvy
They put the pills in special shoes – one pair of shoes can hold 1000 to 2000 methamphetamine pills – or they swim across the river and drop the drugs on the other bank.
Drug runners are getting more and more savvy about their merchandise Thailand to smuggle. Because the Thai-Burmese border is closed, the route now runs via Laos. The final destination is in many cases the US.
"These days, ya ba [mehtamphetamine] has become a growing problem in the US," said Sombat Chao, a US special agent for the US Drug Enforcement Administration. And it is best to tackle the drug problem at its origin. The DEA has been working in Thailand for years to stop the drug trade - especially the trade in methamphetamine, ice (crystal methamphetamine) and cannabis.
It is not easy to combat the growing drug smuggling along the Mekong River. During the day, agents guard the border crossings and search for travelers who have hidden the drugs somewhere in (or on) their body, luggage or specially prepared shoes. At night, the river police with night vision goggles keep watch. The swimming smugglers are dangerous. They carry a gun and a bomb and would rather die than face the death penalty. Moreover, they are difficult to catch, because they choose isolated wooded banks to drop the drugs. There other runners pick up the drugs. Only when she is tipped off do the river police have a chance to intercept them.
tourists smuggling drugs???? almost unthinkable, everyone knows that there are very high penalties for drug smuggling.
the drugs that are exported run along smuggling routes that are controlled by the mafia.
Yet many Westerners are in jail for drug-related cases in TH.
Saw it on TV yesterday.
there is a difference between drug use, self-smuggling and real drug smuggling.
and then those who are framed like ex senator Kim Gijbels in Belgium
I wouldn't be surprised how they got involved with drugs.
If you can't pay the time, don't do the crime
The good thing was that the person I saw on TV last Tuesday at the airport had still read the warning for the death penalty for drugs. If I had paid attention, he would have only been sentenced to 3 years in prison.
As long as the police in Thailand are easily bribed, combating drug trafficking is a farce. At most pick up a very small courier or a single bigger boy who becomes too difficult. The rest can just go ahead.