Myanmar burns half a billion dollar worth drugs stash

NAYPYITAW: Experts warn that smugglers have adapted to Covid-19 travel restrictions and are back in business after Myanmar authorities destroyed almost half a billion dollars worth of narcotics throughout the country on Saturday, sending opium, heroin and methamphetamine up in smoke.

Sacks of green-brown cannabis were stacked high alongside bin-liner-sized packets of red-pink tablets at a compound in Yangon's commercial capital, signifying one of Myanmar's contributions for the annual World Drug Day burning.

On the pyre, there were also slabs of heroin, bags of ketamine and tramadol and ice.

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According to the sources, stashes were also burned at events in Mandalay and Taunggyi in Shan State.

In the three cities, a total of $668 million dollar of narcotics was burned, including 224 million meth tablets.

Four men in military uniform pressed buttons on tables in front of them while a woman screamed a command over a loudspeaker in Yangon, and the stash went up in flames licking the early morning sky.

Firefighters stood prepared, a safe distance away from the noxious smoke.

Despite the Covid-19 travel restrictions, the UN said earlier this month that there has been an "overall continuous increase of the methamphetamine market in East and Southeast Asia."

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According to the sources, the drug is often smuggled into wealthy overseas markets like Australia and Japan in its more dangerous crystallised form with Myanmar's troubled Shan State still remains the main supplier.

Following weeks of countrywide unrest and strike action following the military takeover, the body has warned of an even larger deluge as Myanmar's legal economy tanks.

The Golden Triangle, which runs through Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, has long been the epicentre of Southeast Asia's rich drug trade.

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