Chiang mai: Border patrol police in Chiang Mai pursued a pickup truck that had run through a checkpoint for several kilometers. The driver eventually stopped the vehicle and fled on foot, but was apprehended in a chaotic scene along with 2 million methamphetamine pills.
According to Thai News Agency, the footage shows Border Patrol Police Unit 335 chasing a pickup truck smuggling narcotics after it evaded a checkpoint on the Ban Rin Luang road, Muang Na Subdistrict, Chiang Dao District, Chiang Mai Province. The pursuit lasted several kilometers until the suspects, realizing they were cornered, stopped the vehicle by the roadside and attempted to flee into the forest on foot. However, the officers managed to apprehend them.
The driver was later identified as Mr. Abepha, a young ethnic minority resident from Ban Pa Muang Ngam, Muang Na Subdistrict, Chiang Dao District. Authorities seized a pickup truck with license plate YP 5218 Chiang Mai, which was used to transport the drugs. Inside the vehicle, they found eight yellow sacks containing a total of 2 million methamphetamine pills.
Subsequently, officials brought Mr. Abepha, along with the seized 2 million methamphetamine pills, for questioning and to expand the investigation to include his accomplices at Border Patrol Police Company 335. Mr. Abepha confessed that he picked up the methamphetamine from a roadside forest in the Arunothai area to deliver it to a network in Chiang Dao district, where someone would take over and distribute it further inland. However, Mr. Abepha did not know who hired him to transport the drugs.
Officials suspect that this batch of methamphetamine was smuggled in at night from outside the country via a network of intermediaries. It was temporarily stored in the forest area near Ban Arunothai, where someone coordinated the process. The suspects were then instructed to load the sacks of methamphetamine onto a vehicle and transport it to Chiang Dao town. A third party from the network was to pick it up, presumably to prevent any arrests and ensure the identities of the mastermind behind the smuggling would be traced.