Pha Muang Task Force initiated a clash with a drug gang firing to break through at the Mae Fah Luang border in Chiang Rai province. Waiting until dawn to inspect the scene, they found two suspects dead and seized 2.4 million methamphetamine pills on site.
At 05:30 on 29 Apr 2026 GMT+7, Colonel Suphan Roi Phut, commander of the Chaotak Task Force under Pha Muang Task Force, received a report about a drug trafficking convoy entering the Mae Fah Luang district of Chiang Rai. He ordered the 1st Cavalry Company of Chaotak Task Force, along with the special intelligence operations team and the long-range patrol platoon of Pha Muang Task Force, to patrol and intercept drugs near Ban Pang Mahun, Village No. 8, Thoed Thai subdistrict, Mae Fah Luang district, Chiang Rai.
They encountered a group of 10 to 15 armed men carrying backpacks moving from the border into the area where officers were ambushing. The officers ordered them to stop for a search, but the drug traffickers fired unknown weapons at the officers to break through. A clash lasted about five minutes before officers radioed for three additional operational units to secure the area.
Waiting until dawn at 07:30, officers cleared the area and found 12 sacks modified as backpacks containing about 2,400,000 methamphetamine pills abandoned on the forest floor. Nearby, two members of the drug trafficking group were found dead by a stream.
Later, at 11:30, Lieutenant General Satit Waiyanon, commander of Pha Muang Task Force and director of its Anti-Drug Operations Center, ordered Colonel Suphan Roi Phut, commander of Chaotak Task Force, to represent the commander in inspecting the seized drugs along with relevant agencies. The seized meth was handed over to Mae Fah Luang Police Station for investigation and prosecution.
Lieutenant General Satit Waiyanon, commander of Pha Muang Task Force and director of its Anti-Drug Operations Center, revealed that from 1 Oct 2025 to present, authorities have intercepted drugs 331 times, arrested 332 suspects, and seized 196,428,912 methamphetamine pills, 3.6 kilograms of heroin, 3,375.8 kilograms of ice methamphetamine, 174.3 kilograms of opium, and 437.4 kilograms of ketamine. There were 45 clashes with traffickers resulting in 37 traffickers' deaths. If these drugs had been trafficked into Bangkok, the economic damage from their street value would have reached 33.289 billion baht.