Tonne of ketamine found stashed under cabbages in Thailand

Just under a tonne of ketamine was discovered amongst a delivery of cabbages in Bangkok, Thailand last weekend.

According to Bangkok police, around 900kg of ketamine and 700kg of crystal meth was found stashed in white plastic-wrapped bricks on Saturday (April 4).

The drug haul was being transported in a pickup truck from an unknown neighbouring country, and was discovered at the base of the van underneath a shipment of loose cabbages, as seen in videos from AFP.

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The drugs weighed in at around 1.6 tonnes in total, the same as a fully-grown adult hippo. They were expected to fetch around 520 million baht (£12 million) at street value.

A 39-year-old Thai man was arrested on drug trafficking charges, per Myanmar Now, after his truck was stopped by police at a petrol station in the central Ayutthaya province.

The man confessed that he was asked to transport the drugs in exchange for 100,000 baht (£2,300). He now faces drug trafficking charges with a maximum sentence of 15 years to life in jail.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), a record 236 tonnes of methamphetamines alone were seized across east and southeast Asia in 2024.

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They also said that Thailand was “the main transit and destination point for methamphetamine trafficked from neighbouring Myanmar”.

Just last month, almost one tonne of cocaine was discovered inside a shipment of bananas in Southampton after it was thought to have travelled from Nicaragua via Panama to the UK.

Authorities intercepted the shipment on Wednesday, March 18, which contained 943kg of cocaine packaged in black plastic alongside dozens of pallets of bananas.

[Via Myanmar Now]

Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Associate Digital Editor, follow her on X