Police in Kalasin have seized 84,000 speed pills found abandoned in Somdet district. The drugs are valued at 20 million baht.
Pol Maj Gen Montri Charanpong, chief of Kalasin police, said the pills were found on Monday by a 47-year-old villager. They had been left in a fertiliser sack at the base of a tree.
He said the villager alerted the police at 6pm when he became suspicious and looked in the sack. After police examined the sack, they decided to lie in wait to see if anyone would come along to collect the sack.
After waiting for several hours with no one coming forth, the police took the drugs to the police station, said Pol Maj Gen.
He added they would review security camera footage to identify possible suspects.
In another case, three people were arrested in Ubon Ratchathani on charges of drug trafficking after they were found with 130,000 methamphetamine pills in their possession, police said.
Pol Col Sanit Chaisathit, a superintendent attached to Ubon Ratchathani provincial police, said the arrest was made following a tip-off about drug smuggling across the border from Laos to Thailand.
According to Pol Col Sanit, the suspects were travelling in a black car which made a sudden stop near the spot where police were waiting for them after they had collected what looked like a fertiliser sack.
As the driver headed back to where the car had come from, the police chased the suspected car and signalled the driver to stop. One of them threw the sack out of the car as they tried to get away. However, the driver eventually decided to stop.
He said police recovered the abandoned sack and found the speed pills. The drugs were estimated to be worth 39 million baht.
The suspects were identified as Pradappan Kaewta, 33, Sarawut Nuansri, 29, and a 16-year-old female identified only as Ms A. All the suspects are natives of Amnat Charoen.
Mr Pradappan told police he was hired by a Lao drug trader to smuggle the speed pills for 150,000 baht. He was told to collect the drugs at the pick-up point and deliver them to another group in Amnat Charoen.
According to Pol Col Sanit, the suspect said the speed pills were destined for distribution in the lower part of the Northeast and this lot was supposed to replace another package that had been seized on Nov 19.
Pol Col Sanit said that almost 100,000 speed pills had been seized on Nov 19.
