SONGKHLA: Forty foreigners tested positive for drug use when police raided a popular discotheque near the Malaysian border in Sadao district in the early hours of Friday.
About 50 police, local officials and health volunteers descended on the New Love Me discotheque in the basement of Hejia Grand Hotel near Ban Dan Nok checkpoint in tambon Samnak Kham following complaints by local residents that illicit drugs were being sold to foreign pub-goers there.
More than 400 patrons were inside the disco at the time. Searchers found drugs dumped in trash bins, toilets and under sofas. They included 40 small packets of crystal methamphetamine, 50 packets of ketamine, ecstasy, methamphetamine and marijuana. The tobacco in some cigarettes was found to be mixed with drugs.
Police locked the entrance and exit doors and searched all customers, an operation lasting from 1am to 5am Friday. Forty of the customers tested positive for illicit drug use. Nine were Malaysian men and the others Myanmar and Chinese nationals. All carried passports. One was under the age of 20 years.
Saengthong Nuankhanai, caretaker of the disco, and the 40 customers were held in police custody for further interrogation.
During the search, an influential figure tried to contact the arresting team via phone and offered a bribe of 2 million baht in exchange for dropping the charges, police said. The offer was rejected.
Songkhla deputy governor Narongporn Na Phatthalung said an investigation found the nightspot had no operating licence. There were complaints that drug dealing and use were rampant at the disco.
Provincial authorities ordered the venue closed for five years. A committee will investigate whether any officials had a vested interest in the place, which had been operating for a long time. Owners and major shareholders, who included local politicians, would be called in for questioning, Mr Narongporn said.
