VIENTIANE, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Lao drug control and supervision police have seized a huge shipment of drugs in northern Laos.
The police and local authorities in Bokeo province, 340 km northwest of Lao capital Vientiane, were hunting a group of drug traffickers after a man was arrested on Sunday while driving a large quantity of amphetamine tablets and heroin to a neighbouring country through Tonpheung district of the province.
Lao police seized over 5.7 million amphetamine tablets wrapped in 2,882 packages weighing 694 kg and 180 blocks of heroin weighing 72 kg hidden inside a pick-up driven by a Lao national from Nambak district in Luang Prabang province of northern Laos, local Vientiane Times reorted on Tuesday.
Deputy Head of the Bokeo province Drug Control Department, Police Lt. Col. Houmphaeng Sisaketh, told the local daily on Monday that they stopped the pick-up after receiving a tip-off that a large supply of drugs will be transported to a neighboring country.
"We searched the pick-up as soon as it reached the checkpoint and we arrested the driver," he said.
The driver told Lao police that he had been hired by another man to carry the drugs from Tonpheung district to a neighboring country. He will be paid 200 million kip (around 23,370 U.S. dollars) upon delivery of the shipment, said the report.
It is estimated that the street value of the haul can be trillions of kip if the tablets and heroin were sold in the country of destination, Houmphaeng said.
"This is largest haul of drugs we have intercepted in Tonpheung district in recent years," he said, adding "Lao drug control department was doing everything possible to track down and arrest those involved in the shipment and send them to court in a bid to prevent continuing proliferation of the drug trade."
Further investigations into the criminal connections of the man arrested were underway, with provincial and district police hoping to expose and arrest more members of the trafficking syndicate.
