THAI HEROIN CORRIDOR REOPENING, DRUG OFFICIALS SAY

BANGKOK - Drugs cartels have started to send large
quantities of heroin from Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle through
Thailand again after a three-year lull, Thai officials said on Thursday.

Thailand's Narcotic Control Board (NCB) said it arrested three
suspects for heroin trafficking on Wednesday and Thursday and seized
45 kg (99 lbs) of heroin in its biggest drugs haul in weeks.

A narcotics official said the haul indicated Thailand was again
becoming the preferred route for moving heroin onto the world market
from the so-called Golden Triangle, a mountainous region at the
intersection of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos.

"Three years ago the traffickers began to use China and Vietnam as the
major heroin routes to Europe, America and other markets. But since
the Chinese government began a crackdown on the trade, there are
signs traffickers have gone back to using Thailand as a route,"
Chatichai Sithiklam, the head of the NCB's drug suppression division,
told a news conference.

Chatichai said 90 bars of heroin weighing 45 kg were seized in
Pattalung province in southern Thailand on Wednesday when police
stopped a truck at a rendezvous where two of the suspects were about
to hand over the drugs to buyers.

Chatichai said it was the second major drugs haul in a month and both
consignments had used a similar routes through Thailand. Informants
had told them the same gangs had formerly sent drugs through China.

NCB officials declined to estimate the value of the heroin
seized.

Police said they had followed the suspects from Mae Sai, a town in
northern Thailand that is part of the Golden Triangle after they
received a shipment from an agent on the border.

They had arrested one suspect in Mae Sai who they said had acted as an
agent for the heroin. All the suspects were Thai but the NCB said the
seized heroin had come from Myanmar.

Police said the heroin had been moved into Thailand by an ethnic
minority community living in northeastern Myanmar but declined to
identify which one.

Several ethnic minorities live in that part of Myanmar, including the
Wa and Shan, some of whom were formerly led by the opium warlord Khun
Sa.

In the first eight months of last year, the NCB seized 410 kg (900
lbs) of heroin from the Golden Triangle.

The U.S. Drugs Enforcement Administration estimates that some 70
percent of heroin smuggled into the United States comes from the
Golden Triangle.