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DRUG TRAFFICKERS USE THAILAND AGAIN



Drug traffickers begin   using Thailand again
6th february 1999
NCB

                       Recent drug busts in southern Thailand seem to
indicate that ``Golden
                       Triangle'' traffickers are again using Thailand as a
principal north-south
                       route for their heroin shipments.

                       ``Three years ago the traffickers began to use China
and Vietnam as
                       the major heroin routes to Europe, America and other
markets,'' said
                       Chatichai Sithiklam, head of the drug-suppression
unit of the Thai
                       Narcotics Control Board (NCB). ``But since the
Chinese government
                       began a crackdown on the trade, traffickers have gone
back to using
                       Thailand as a route.''

                       In their most recent seizures, NCB agents confiscated
90 bars of
                       heroin, weighing 99 pounds, after following trucks
from the northern
                       town of Mae Sai. The agents said the heroin had come
from Burma
                       (Myanmar) and had been transported into Thailand by
members of an
                       ethnic minority group living along the border. The
three men arrested,
                       however, were Thai.

                       The NCB said it seized about 1,000 pounds of Golden
Triangle heroin
                       last year. Most of the heroin sold in the United
States comes from the
                       triangle, the mountainous region where eastern Burma,
Laos and
                       northern Thailand come together.