[Smittoh]

Police seized a massive haul of methamphetamine pills, or ya ba, worth about 500 million baht and arrested a suspected drug smuggler in Lampang’s Mae Phrik district on Thursday.

The arrest came after officers from Mae Phrik Police Station stopped a Chiang Rai-registered pickup truck with four men inside for a search in the afternoon. The men ran away from the vehicle into a nearby grove. Police inspected the pickup and found a total of two million speed pills concealed in 10 sacks.

Authorities conducted air and ground searches for the four drug suspects who were hiding in the forest. One of the suspects was arrested after three hours in an operation involving two helicopters. Police identified him as Winai sae Her, 22, a Hmong hilltribesman from Chiang Rai.

The three other suspects are still at large and the search is continuing into the night, reports said.