Authorities say that seven police officers have been detained after nearly 300,000 meth tablets worth about half a million dollars were found hidden in the kitchen of a remote border post near Bangladesh.
“The police found a total of 292,500 stimulant tablets hidden in the ground inside the kitchen,” Soe Linn Aye, a senior officer at national police headquarters in the capital, told Reuters on Thursday.
Meth use and production is on the rise in Myanmar and the rest of Southeast Asia, but the problem is exacerbated here as the central government has little oversight over several remote areas controlled by armed groups that serve as conduits to the rest of the region and China or, in this case, back towards India.
In the past, it was opium and heroin that Myanmar was known for producing in large quantities, and while that is still going on, meth is fast becoming a competitor.
