Chiang Rai, Thailand – In the far north of Thailand, a deadly conflict is playing out between drug syndicates and Thai security forces working to stop a flood of narcotics from the region known as the Golden Triangle.
Drug shipment sizes are staggering and the body count rising in this low-intensity battle against increasingly sophisticated drug producers and traffickers. It is made all the more difficult due to the heavily-militarised and largely-lawless territory the producers and traffickers operate from in the Golden Triangle – located at the meeting point of the jungled borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.
Methamphetamine pill seizures from the Golden Triangle are now regularly counted in the millions, while crystal methamphetamine, heroin and ketamine shipments are calculated in the hundreds of kilograms. Meanwhile, the death toll from gun battles involving Thai forces…
