Police have arrested 16 people and seized more than a million methamphetamine pills in an operation targeting suspects already on a wanted list. They also took 514 kilogrammes of crystal methamphetamine, along with four cars and three firearms.
16 people were arrested across 16 locations in Thailand and abroad between September 4 and 11. Police put the value of what they took at more than 120 million baht.
The Central Investigation Bureau ran the operation, which it called Blocklist Hunt, between September 4 and September 11. Officers searched 16 separate targets over that week, some of them outside Thailand.
Five of those arrested were described by police as significant suspects. One is an alleged deputy to a trafficker known as Pao Kranuan and faces charges including attempted murder and killing an officer.
Two others on the list were tracked as far as Myanmar, police said. Each carried a bounty of 400,000 baht and both are linked to a network that moved 300 kilogrammes of crystal methamphetamine.
A fourth man is tied to a pill network in Bueng Kan province, which handled more than a million tablets. A fifth is linked to more than 214 kilogrammes of crystal methamphetamine.
The remaining 11 arrests were district-level distributors. Four came from an online crystal methamphetamine network in Mueang Khon Kaen and five from a pill network in Kranuan and Nong Kung Si.
Pol. Maj. Gen. Phatthanasak Buppasuwan said the operation cut the chain from street sellers up to the larger networks. Police valued the seized goods and assets together at more than 120 million baht.
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