Man arrested for 20k yaba pills after pickup truck flipped

 | Mon 18 Jan 2021 13:32 ICT

A 34 year old man from Phayao has been arrested following a dramatic, though short, police chase along the Chiang Mai-Lampang Superhighway.

According to police, they had been alerted to a possible drug haul arriving in Chiang Mai on a pickup truck today and had been keeping an eye out. When a suspicious looking pickup truck was parked by the side of the road heading into Chiang Mai from Lampang they began to observe it. The pickup truck then pulled out and made a u-turn back to Lamphun where it again parked by the side of the road for five minutes before pulling out and heading back to Chiang Mai. Police followed it as it again parked for a few minutes by the side of the road before entering the city.

Police alerted the Covid-19 checkpoint ahead of this suspicious activity and when the truck arrived at the checkpoint, officials asked it to slowdown. The driver refused and drove through the checkpoint. Police pursued the truck and saw the driver throw items out of the window before the truck lost control and flipped over onto the incoming lane.

20,000 ya ba tablets were found in bundles around 100 metres before the flipped truck.