Laos makes big meth bust as UN warns of security breakdown
By GRANT PECK
Associated Press
BANGKOK (AP) — Police in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos have made their second huge seizure in three months of methamphetamine. A U.N. expert on illicit drugs says a surge in trafficking has resulted from a breakdown of security in the Mekong River region since a military takeover in Myanmar. Laotian police seized 36.5 million meth pills in the northwestern province of Bokeo, which borders on Myanmar and Thailand in a frontier area known as the Golden Triangle. It’s famous for the production of illicit drugs. Thailand is a major market for drugs from Myanmar, which are also shipped onward to other countries. Jeremy Douglas, the regional representative for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, says Thailand and Laos have been flooded with meth in recent months.