Thai drug enforcement officials and Navy SEALs seized 909kg of crystal methamphetamine, or Ice, on Tuesday night from a trawler in the Gulf of Thailand, about 20 nautical miles from Samed Island in the eastern province of Rayong. The 6 crew members were arrested.
Officers from the Office of the Narcotic Control Board (ONCB) also seized six cars, two motorcycles, bank accounts and other assets, worth altogether more than 5 million baht, in follow-up raids on five locations in Rayong and two in Bangkok on Wednesday.
The seizure of the large haul of ice, which was about to be transferred to a sea-going vessel from the trawler, and the subsequent seizure of other assets were disclosed at a joint press conference on Thursday, given by ONCB Secretary-General Wichai Chaimongkhon, Admiral Pokkrong Monthatphalin, the spokesman of the Royal Thai Navy and Captain Narong Nusuwan, commander of the Thai Navy SEALs.
Wichai attributed the successful operation to four months of intensive investigation into the activities of a transnational drug trafficking gang, which uses fishing vessels to transport illegal narcotics to ocean-going vessels.
The investigators got a break on Tuesday when a truck was seen arriving at the location where the drugs were stored.
Plainclothes officers kept a close watch on the storage facility until about 9pm Tuesday night, when a white pickup truck arrived to carry the drugs to a pier, where a trawler was moored.
The trawler then set sail for a rendezvous with a sea-going vessel, but the SEAL team and narcotics officials intercepted it.
