Cases of drug trafficking surging in year since military coup

INCREASED instability in the country since a military coup a year ago has seen a surge in narcotics production there and trafficking into South-East Asia and beyond, a senior official from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said.

Authorities in Laos, Thailand and Myanmar seized at least 90 million methamphetamine tablets and 4.4 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine last month, most of it manufactured in the remote border areas of Myanmar’s Shan State, according to the UNODC.