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Afp
Myanmar authorities seized more than 10 million meth pills worth
$13.3 million over the weekend, police said Monday, another massive haul
in a country widely believed to be the world's largest methamphetamine
producer.
High-grade crystal meth -- or 'ice' -- is smuggled out of Myanmar via
sophisticated networks to lucrative developed markets as far away as
Japan, South Korea and Australia.
Lower-quality pills, cut with caffeine and known in the region as
"yaba" or "crazy medicine", are pumped out to feed the voracious
domestic market as well as large drug-addicted communities in nearby
Thailand and Bangladesh.
Two different busts took place in the west of the country at the
weekend, state-run media said Monday, one in Magway region and one in
Maungdaw in Rakhine state.
"It's the biggest drugs seizure this year in the country and the
biggest ever in Maungdaw region in Rakhine State," police colonel Win Ko
Ko told AFP.
The pills were likely destined for Bangladesh, where they have become
an easy source of income for the Rohingya Muslim refugees who have
poured across the border since a 2017 military crackdown.
Most of the drug production, however, takes place on the other side of Myanmar, in conflict-ridden eastern Shan state.
Much of the state lies outside of central control with a complex web
of rebel ethnic armed groups and militias wielding power and linking up
with trafficking networks.
Opium farming is also rife, and Myanmar remains the world's second largest producer of the drug after Afghanistan.
The poppy-covered hills also provide an ideal location for illicit
meth labs, with a largely unchecked supply of precursor chemicals
flooding-in from China.
Accurate production figures are impossible to obtain, but experts say
that large seizures have had no effect on drug prices -- suggesting
they are only a small proportion of the total.
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