Drug runners in Laos shoot at police, abandon vehicles packed with meth and heroin

Alleged drug runners in northwest Laos shot at police and fled on foot into dense jungle leaving behind two vans packed with meth and heroin, a police social media post said.

At about 9 p.m. on June 21, officers noticed that the two vehicles did not have license plates and ordered them to pull over for inspection. The occupants of the vehicles allegedly shot at the police and abandoned the vehicles, fleeing into the forest, the Bokeo province police department said on its Facebook page.

After inspecting the vehicles, they found around 5.8 million meth pills and 225 kilograms (almost 500 pounds) of heroin.

It’s the latest incident in Laos’ struggle to eradicate drugs from proliferating inside the country.

Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone reported on June 10 to the Lao National Assembly that cracking down on drugs remains a national priority and in the first half of this year, the government was able to arrest 2,616 drug suspects. 

“Most of the drugs are from either Myanmar or China because they can’t be produced here in our country,” an officer of the Bokeo Police Department, who like all unnamed sources in this report requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA Lao.

He said that part of Laos is prone to drug smuggling, and that by law, samples of the seized drugs would be sent to a lab to verify that they are indeed meth and heroin. The rest will be destroyed.

The officer explained that they did not pursue the suspects because they were armed and it was very dark in the forest, so they didn’t want to take unnecessary risk.

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A resident who lives near where the incident occurred told RFA he heard gunshots at around 9 a.m.

“It was at night and nobody at my house had gone to bed yet,” he said, “The next morning, I found out that there was a clash between police and drug smugglers.”

He said he and his neighbors were disappointed that the suspects were not apprehended.

Another resident said that he wished the police would have brought the suspects in because it is likely they are smuggling drugs in from other countries.

There is a large market for drugs in Laos, particularly among younger people, an employee of a rehab center in the province said.

“Many Laotians, especially youths aged 15 or 16 have become addicted to drugs and are admitted to the rehab center. Sometimes, the center has up to 30 of them,” she said. 

“Drugs, particularly meth, are available anywhere in our village and region,” she said. “Drugs destroy people’s lives. If the government can’t stop this, many more people will be affected.”

Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.