The dramatic increase in transnational crime and synthetic drugs in SE Asia requires cross-border cooperation

A Thai Navy launch traveled at high speed down the muddy waters of the Mekong River near the border town of Chiang Saen in northern Thailand. On the right is Laos, where huge construction projects financed by foreign investments are rising from the thicket along the river bank and further to the left are the dense forests of Myanmar.

This is the golden triangle where opium was historically grown to produce heroin for export but where, in recent years, an even deadlier business and more profitable synthetic drugs have taken over.

Thailand, Laos and Myanmar are at the forefront of the illegal trade in Asia which is dominated by transnational organized crime groups.

Zero seizure

The crew aboard a Thai cruise ship is on edge following the recent seizure of 6.4 million pills of the banned and highly addictive synthetic methamphetamine, known locally as yaba.

“I’m surprised but I’m really happy that we got this amount,” said Captain Phakorn Maniam, Chief of Operations and Intelligence of the Mekong Riverine Unit, Royal Thai Navy. UN News. “Normally, this amount of medicine is collected on the ground; it is a difficult operation to catch criminals in the middle of the river,” he said, “so I am very happy for our sailors, who have dedicated themselves to protect the country us and our people.”

A few miles down in the small town of Houay Xai on the Laotian side of the Mekong, border officials are celebrating receiving their own special medicines; Last night after a tip-off, a military police force seized drug mules carrying 500 kilos of crystal meth. Last month 7.1 million methamphetamine pills were also seized in the same area.

The drugs traced to Laos and Thailand originate in illegal industrial-scale factories operated by the military and criminal gangs in the mountainous forests of northern Shan State in Myanmar and are routed through both countries to the Thai capital, Bangkok, but also beyond. Southeast Asia and to distant profitable markets including Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia.

It is difficult to estimate with certainty how much synthetic drugs are produced in Myanmar, but some estimates suggest that several hundred tons are exported from the country.

Despite the seemingly relentless flow of drugs, Thai and Lao authorities are experiencing some success thanks, in part, to the support of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) which is promoting a regional intelligence gathering network.

Captain Phakorn Maniam has been deployed to the Thai Navy’s Mekong Riverine Unit

Officer C, who is in Houay Xai with Lao authorities and who does not want to be named for security reasons, said that cooperation with law enforcement agencies across the border in Thailand through regular calls, face-to-face meetings and communications others have improved the response to illegal trafficking. “With cross-border cooperation and information sharing, we have been able to combat drug trafficking and other forms of organized crime in other countries.”

Anti-crime authorities in Thailand and Laos are cooperating more closely as a result of the UNODC Regional Border Management Program under which a network of border intelligence offices or BLOs was established to strengthen cross-border cooperation and information sharing.

The network of over 120 BLOs spans Southeast Asia from Myanmar in the west to China in the east and Indonesia to the south and includes Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam.

The BLOs are strengthened with the support of the UNODC to combat what the drugs and crime syndicates of the Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Jeremy Douglas, called “one of the largest drug trafficking systems in the world.” “

Three countries, Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos, are located together in the Golden Triangle.

The challenges that affect foreign trade are very serious as Mr. Douglas said: “There are complex governance issues in the Golden Triangle and in Myanmar, with splinter groups and competing militaries. in the drug trade and other illegal businesses that control the state. ” he said. “At the same time, these groups are working in very remote places, and in cases with very porous, open borders. It’s easy to get drugs and illegal things in Myanmar and get out, and the situation is very difficult for your neighbors to deal with.”

The recent increase in the production of synthetic drugs has been “unexpected” according to the UNODC Regional Representative who believes that cooperation between countries is “fundamental” to prevent trafficking: “This is a shared responsibility; Addressing transnational crime requires states to cooperate to respond quickly to what is happening, especially in border areas. “

It is not only drugs that are being sold in the area. The chemical precursors to make synthetic drugs are being smuggled into Myanmar in much larger quantities than the drugs being exported. Trafficking of people, wild animals, timber and weapons is also taking place.

In such a complex and problematic environment, new skills are needed to face new challenges. As part of its BLO support, UNODC has developed training partnerships with institutions across Southeast Asia.

Border Patrol Officer in Laos.

On Highway 1, some 40 kilometers south of the Thai-Myanmar border Police Lieutenant Colonel Amonrat Wathanakhosit is taking his students through an exercise focused on detecting vehicles for contraband.

“Our students are using UNODC knowledge products and training and learning how to ask a driver, and they apply it to how they behave. Our students have become more confident about identifying which drivers can treat synthetic drugs.”

Unlike heroin, the production of which is sustained by the natural growing process of the opium poppy, methamphetamine can be produced as long as the precursor and other chemicals are present.

The cooperation of governments with the support of UNODC is helping to stop the flow of drugs, even if it is widely accepted that the seizure represents only a small percentage of the drugs sold in the region.

Officials like Lt Col Amonrat Wathanakhosit know the challenges but no doubt speak for many across the region saying that “my work trying to stop drugs is essential to the security of my country.”

A Thai policeman stops a car at a checkpoint 40 kilometers south of the Thai-Myanmar border.