BANGKOK - Thai anti-narcotics officers have seized 176kg of crystal methamphetamine hidden in the metal frames of electric treadmills bound for Japan, police said on Thursday .
"Last month, the Australian police busted a similar case with the drugs hidden in exercise equipment, which they told us was packaged and exported from Thailand," Police Major General Yingyot Thepchamnong, head of the Narcotics Suppression Bureau told Reuters."So, we followed up in the belief there must be other cases.
Thailand is a major trafficking route for crystal meth manufactured in Myanmar's Shan and Kachin states. The meth market has expanded at an alarming rate as drug seizures have surged more than tenfold over the past two years, official statistics show. The UNODC estimates that the Asia-Pacific methamphetamine trade alone was worth as much as US$61.4 billion in 2018, up from an estimated US$15 billion just five years earlier.