A report coming out of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) states that Southeast Asia is becoming a breeding ground for powerful drug gangs.
According to the UN’s report, the gangs can act with impunity thanks to widespread corruption and the lack of law enforcement in remote border regions.
Late last month, Thai border officers found 5 million methamphetamine pills–locally known as yaba–and 320 pounds of crystal meth wrapped in plastic bags hidden in a cave deep in the jungle.
The drug stash was reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars.
Another UNODC report found that the meth trade alone is worth upwards of $61 billion in Aisa annually.
Even routine busts by authorities across Southeast Asia have made little difference as drugs and the syndicates profiting from them still run rampant.
Thailand drug attorneys argue that the reason the drug trade is booming in Southeast Asia has a lot to do with former warlords and separatists located in the lawless Golden Triangle where Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand meet switching from political ambitions to profiteering off the trafficking of drugs.
In Myanmar’s extremely remote Shan State (pictured above) specifically, gangs have been able to produce huge amounts of synthetic drugs and easily move it across the Thai border with no one to stop them due to lax border controls.
Not only that, the gangs are increasingly trying to flood the market with cheap meth, which is becoming easier and easier to produce–in order to keep prices low.
In Thailand, a methamphetamine pill costs as little as $1.
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