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BKK Post -Traffickers get high to a



Subject: BKK Post -Traffickers get high to avoid police

Bangkok Post - Aug 20, 1999.
NARCOTICS SMUGGLING

Traffickers get high to avoid police
Drugs being flown in during night flights

Ultra-light planes are being used to smuggle methamphetamines across the
northern border from Burma at night.

Realisation that traffickers are using the latest in sophisticated sports
technology to evade ground-based police and military patrols dawned on
authorities after villagers reported seeing the lights the motorised
hang-gliders use for navigation and landing.

"The machines are similar to the ones used by tourists in Pattaya and by
some police units," Sanan Kachornprasart, the interior minister, said
yesterday.

Drug suppression strategy would need to be adjusted to stem the drug flow
from the sky, he admitted. This would include stepped-up night-time
surveillance.

Maj-Gen Sanan also confirmed that the border crossing at Kiew Pha Waok in
Chiang Mai's Chiang Dao district had been closed by the Burmese, adding that
this should aid Thai drug suppression efforts. He disagreed with reports it
was retaliation by Rangoon against Thailand's anti-drug campaign, which has
resulted in major seizures recently.

He said suppression operations were not enough to stop the flow of drugs
into Thailand and said effort should be put into stopping essential
precursor chemicals reaching drug producers in the North.