Record-breaking ketamine haul intercepted in Myeik Archipelago

The Myanmar Navy made the largest ketamine bust on record in Myanmar on Sunday when it intercepted a boat in the Myeik Archipelago carrying 940 kilos of the anesthetic drug.

The Navy tracked the vessel using radar as it travelled south from Pyapon, Ayeyawady Region, to the archipelago off the coast of the Malay Peninsula. According to Eleven, Navy personnel thought the boat looked suspicious and requested to search it, but the ship fled. When they caught up with the boat, the Navy personnel searched it and found 940 one-kilo packages of ketamine powder in Chinese tea packaging.

Eleven crew members were arrested in the drug bust, which was conducted 5.5 miles northwest of West Sular Island.

Tun Nay Soe, the coordinator for UNODC in Southeast Asia and the Pacific said the ketamine was likely headed for Malaysia, where ketamine use is on the rise.

“The area where the ship was intercepted is close to Malaysia, where the ketamine problem is rising. The sea route [from southern Myanmar] to Penang has been around since dynastic times,” he told Coconuts Yangon.

He also said it was unlikely the ketamine was meant for consumption in Myanmar, where heroin and meth are far more popular.

“The Myeik Archipelago was likely a transshipment point from either India or China to its final destination,” he said.

Ketamine is used legally around the world as an anesthetic for humans and for animals. Rising recreational use in China has prompted that country’s government to repeatedly seek to include ketamine under Schedule I of the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971.

However, the drug’s medical applications, particularly on the battlefield in developing countries, has kept ketamine off the list, meaning the drug is still uncontrolled internationally. It is, however, regulated by national laws.

Tun Nay Soe said that while the crew members were arrested for the smuggling attempt, the leader of the operation was likely not on the boat.

“The masterminds are probably in a safe place right now,” he said.

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