According to the United Nations’ crime organization, drug lords in Asia have set up new factories and shipping routes to make more Methamphetamine available to people in the Asia-Pacific area. The group says that the drug trade in the region is worth between $30,3 billion and $61,4 billion.
What is really happening here?
Borders have been closed, flights have been limited, and drug markets have been locked down because of the pandemic. This has led to more seizures of both “yaba” and “ice” meth.
More than 20% more Methamphetamine was found in Asia last year, according to a report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.People who work for the UNODC say crime organizations and their ability to get Methamphetamine are primarily unaffected by COVID-19.More than a ton of crystal meth was taken from people in Southeast Asia between May and December last year, says Sim.
It will be marked by a ceremony outside Yangon, Myanmar, on June 26, 2020. Firefighters will douse the flames and smoke from burning illegal substances with water to make them go out.A lot of drugs that were found in Thailand and Myanmar have been lost.Also, a new way to get ice from Thai ports to places like Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong is to hide tons of ice in containers and ship them from Thai ports to those places.UNODC official Jeremy Douglas says that seized cargo has shown that vast amounts of ice are kept on so-called “mother ships” far out at sea, where smaller ships can pick up hauls and bring them back to land.
In most cases, these are ships changing their flags or rebranding. They have people who are “pawns” in the game.
In addition, it shows that drug lords can change and build new bridgeheads for their operations that aren’t near their headquarters in a region full of chaos.The price of Methamphetamine has gone down a lot because more and more meth labs are making them highly addictive ice.
The price of a kilo has dropped to a record low of $8,000 in Thailand, and it is now worth less than a quarter of what it was worth before. However, the purity is still about 90%, which means the substance was dumped in the area.
In May of this year, Malaysian Customs found 1,187 kilograms of Methamphetamine worth $17.8 million at a news conference in Nilai, and they took them away.After “The Biggest Drug Lord” died, there was no significant change in the Asian drug trade.
Sim, a member of the UNODC, said that “supply drives the market.” “If the market was driven by demand, prices should not have gone down this much,” he said.
The value of ice is now worth billions of dollars each year to Australian drug smugglers, say drug experts. Even if they’re just a few kilograms in police raids, they can lose large shipments because ice is now worth so much money.
There is only one way to stop the flow of meth: cut off the supply of precursor chemicals coming into the Golden Triangle, say narcotics enforcement officers who have seen a lot of the substance.People who work for the Office of the Narcotics Control Board of Thailand said that without certain ingredients, drug gangs couldn’t make their drugs.
It costs less to make meth if you use new compounds that aren’t already on any global watchlists. This means the drug lords can pass the savings on to the consumer. According to the UNODC, the danger will spread if new precursors aren’t quickly found and dealt with. The “biggest point” in the world where chemicals are made is in East and Southeast Asia, says Douglas.
Douglas says, “And chemicals from here spread around the world.” He says that Asian precursors are used to making synthetic medicines in Mexico and Europe.
