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[BurmaWatch@xxxxxxx]

Thai Cops Seize 277 Lbs. of Heroin

By BUSABA SIVASOMBOON
 .c The Associated Press

  
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Thai police cooperating with U.S. narcotics agents 
have seized 277 pounds of heroin at Bangkok international airport, Thai 
police said Wednesday. 

The drugs were allegedly set to be smuggled by an ethnic Chinese trafficking 
ring to the United States, said Police Lt. Gen. Patpongpanit Komkrit, chief 
of the Thai Narcotic Suppression Bureau. 

After months of surveillance, police on Monday arrested two Thai-Chinese men 
who led them to the heroin hidden in two cars in the airport parking lot. The 
seizure was Thailand's biggest heroin haul in several years. The penalty for 
drug smuggling in Thailand is death. 

The investigation followed a request from the U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration for help from Thai police. Police hope to make more arrests, 
particularly of one key suspect in Hong Kong, Komkrit said at a press 
conference. 

He said the narcotic was bought in northern Thailand, which along with 
Myanmar and Laos, makes up Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle, a leading source 
of the world's opium and its derivative heroin. 

Although Thailand has managed to almost eradicate cultivation of the opium 
poppy on its own mountainsides, it remains a conduit for drugs made in 
Myanmar, also known as Burma, the world's second largest opium producer after 
Afghanistan. 

AP-NY-01-12-00 0836EST