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Myanmar announces record drugs bust

Myanmar authorities on Monday hailed progress in their war on drugs after an unprecedented multimillion dollar seizure at an narcotics factory in eastern Shan state.

Police detained nine suspects with 73 kilograms of ‘ice’ crystal methamphetamine and 274 kilos of liquid meth along with drug-making equipment and a pistol during a raid on a house in Laukkai on 9 July, state media reported.

Officials said the haul was worth an estimated USD 3.7 million.

‘It’s our biggest ice seizure in history. It’s a part of our crackdown on the chemical ingredients and factories,’ a senior official at the home affairs ministry, who did not want to be named, told AFP.

Synthetic drug production and poppy cultivation for opium is prevalent in Myanmar’s remote border areas, where armed ethnic minority rebels have used the profits from narcotics to fund their operations.

President Thein Sein’s reformist government has signed peace accords with a number of armed groups as part of sweeping reforms since taking power last year. Myanmar has said it aims to eradicate illegal drugs by 2014.
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