"Big" drug bust makes headlines.... but why?

Drugs are a big part of Thai life. I don't use any of it because I never felt so compelled but drugs, especially a type of meth that is referred to as "ya ba" (literally translates to "crazy drug" that is extremely easy to get your hands on here.

I don't know anyone that uses this stuff but recently the police were really proud of themselves for busting a "drug kingpin" - their words not mine - in Phuket after a video of him shooting a gun in a mangrove went viral for some reason.

The police then apprehended him by tracing a license plate of a car that appeared in the video back to the rented room. That's pretty good police work but I wonder why they are making such a big deal about this one case and suggesting that this guy is a "kingpin."

src

When police arrived at the scene and busted in at 1am, they discovered a bunch of things and made a really big deal about it in the news. Personally, I'm kind of happy to see the armed police officer in the above picture using correct trigger discipline.

Here's the thing that gets me about this situation: The police make a big deal about this bust because the two perpetrators are from Burma / Myanmar, a nation that Thailand has a long-standing blood feud with over some ancient beef about Burma sacking the old capitol of Thailand and decapitating the statues at religious sites.

These guys are kingpins in the words of the police but what would a kingpin have in their tiny, rather disheveled rented room?

Well they said they found a gun and 5 rounds of ammunition. This is not really that special as guns, although technically illegal for most people in this country to own, actually aren't very difficult to get your hands on. Nothing "kingpin" about that.

next: 3 motorbikes. I've seen the motorbikes. They are stock standard $1000 motorbikes. This is not special. Again, nothing "kingpin" bout this.

src

Those motorbikes are trash and I would be surprised if they have a combined value of $1500.

next up is the cash they found. They had over 100,000 Baht in the rented room. I know that seems like a large number but that is barely $3000.

Drugs: The police found 22 grams of meth and around 175 yaba pills. That is a LOT if you are talking about a personal stash for personal use, sure. But this is not kingpin material. This, if anything, would be considered a low-level street dealer amount of all of these things.

The news story calls him a "kingpin" and talks about the room being "packed" with drugs and guns but that simply isn't true.

It do find it a bit annoying that the media and the police go out of their way to highlight criminals in Thailand, when the criminals are NOT Thai. Yet at the same time when a proper kingpin, like the heir to the Red Bull fortune, is high on cocaine, drunk crashes his car into a police officer and kills the cop, then flees the scene, then flees the country on a private jet to avoid court, the whole situation just gets swept under the rug until everyone forgets about it.

But with these guys, they are going to throw the book at them because they are Burmese. I recall an incident years ago where two Burmese workers were accused of killing some tourists and it looked really suspicious and appeared as though they were being scapegoated into this in order to protect the real perpetrators. When independent investigators were brought in internationally by Amnesty International, the That government was very quick to push this independent investigation aside and then made the story go away by probably disallowing the media from ever talking about it again.

But with this story, about these kingpins that have a very small amount of wealth and a single gun that somehow became "loads of guns" in the media reports, this gets blown up as all the police officers line up to have their picture taken.

src

I do find it amusing that they even have the guys' coins lined up there as evidence. That is likely less than $20. These guys are guilty, this is evident. They admitted to it because in Thailand if you don't fight accusations the courts generally will take it easy on you. But what I don't like is that every time it is a non-Thai that is in this situation, the media tries to paint a Scarface-like incident that simply isn't true. When it is a Thai person that actually IS a Scarface like person, the incident gets covered up and it just fades away.