Cambodia ‘Increasingly Targeted’ for Drug Production by Organized Crime
3 min read

Mech Dara and Michael Dickison
| Thu Jun 10, 2021 11:02 am

Organized crime groups — with individuals commonly from China and Taiwan — are “increasingly targeting” Cambodia for the production of meth and ecstasy and the trafficking of ketamine, with international syndicates’ signature tea bags used for smuggling found in the country, a new report from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime says.

In its report on the latest developments and challenges in synthetic drugs in East and Southeast Asia, released on Thursday, the UNODC says Southeast Asia is the predominant source of methamphetamines in the region, accounting for 71 percent of total meth seized in East and Southeast Asia. Seizures are down in East Asia but up in Southeast Asia, it says.

Cambodia appears to be a rising player in the trade, the report says.

“While Shan State, Myanmar, remains the main source of illicit manufacture of methamphetamine in the region, there are growing signs that Cambodia is being increasingly targeted for large-scale illicit methamphetamine manufacture, showing organized crime diversifying their methamphetamine supply channels,” the report says.

Organized crime groups are also “increasingly targeting” the country for ecstasy manufacture and the trafficking and transhipment of ketamine, it says.

Signs of the increase include the dismantling of five clandestine synthetic drug laboratories in 2020 alone.

“Most notably, in August, 1.9 tons of a suspected methyl alpha-phenylacetoacetate (MAPA) and 600 kg of 3,4-MDP-2P (PMK) were seized in Sihanoukville,” the UNODC says, referring to meth and MDMA precursors.

Another relatively large-scale synthetic drug manufacturing facility was dismantled in July, with 193 kg of crystalline methamphetamine and nearly 2 tons of a variety of chemicals seized at the site, the report says.

It also notes “an increasing importance of ‘ecstasy’ manufacture in the country,” with MDMA or precursors found at four raided labs. The report points particularly to a Phnom Penh facility raided in April 2020.

Furthermore, in February this year, authorities seized 465 kg of ketamine on Koh Poulo Wai island, where the drug was concealed in “distinctive” tea bags, the report says. The tea bags indicate that the drugs were “manufactured by organized crime groups operating in the Golden Triangle that use a similar packaging method for crystalline methamphetamine,” it says.

The tea bags have been found as far afield as Australia, India and New Zealand, and are most commonly labeled “Guanyinwang,” “Qing Shan,” “Pin Wei,” and “Daguanyin,” the report says.

In response to a question about the origins of the organized crime groups, the office added in an email that major seizures reported over the past year most commonly involve individuals from China and Taiwan.

Overall, seizures of crystal methamphetamine hit a record in Cambodia in 2020, with 863.5 kg seized, up 124 percent from 384.9 kg in 2019, according to the report. Some 4,650 people were admitted to drug treatment centers in 2020, it adds.
https://vodenglish.news/cambodia-increa ... zed-crime/

More on the latest report from the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Asia’s synthetic drug trade expanded amid COVID-19 pandemic
Reuters / 01:35 PM June 10, 2021

BANGKOK — Drug traffickers in East and Southeast Asia found ways to evade COVID-19 curbs to boost trade and diversify production, with Cambodia emerging as a large scale source for methamphetamine, the United Nations said on Thursday.

The trafficking of methamphetamine or meth, by far the region’s most popular drug, suffered a short-lived disruption during the height of the pandemic but rebounded to a higher level than a year before, the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report.

Authorities in Asia seized a record of almost 170 tonnes of meth last year, up 19% from 2019, the report said.

“While the pandemic has caused the global economy to slow down, criminal syndicates that dominate the region have quickly adapted and capitalized,” said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

In an effort to dodge COVID-19 restrictions, crime groups increasingly transported drugs through Laos – a small, developing nation with poor law enforcement – to traditional trafficking hubs in Thailand and Vietnam.

The report noted an emergence of large-scale meth production in Cambodia, although Douglas said the country’s output was dwarfed by the still-thriving illegal drug production center in Myanmar’s Shan State, part of the Golden Triangle that also includes parts of Thailand and Laos.

“It looks like organized crime are hedging a bit and shifting some production so not everything is as concentrated,” Douglas told Reuters.

Wholesale prices of meth declined in Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand due to the surge in supply. The UNODC partially attributed the rise in supply to the ease in obtaining precursors to manufacture meth and other drugs. The supply of synthetic drugs such as ecstasy, cannabinoids and ketamine has also expanded across the region, the report said.
https://globalnation.inquirer.net/19690 ... 9-pandemic

In Mekong region, drug trade thrives
Johanna Son Founder/editor of the Reporting ASEAN series
published : 15 Jul 2021 at 04:00

An example of a resilient business model in hard times? Indeed, except that this describes how the synthetic drug industry has been expanding in East and Southeast Asia, home to the Mekong region which is the manufacturing and trafficking hub that supplies illicit drugs that reach not just the wider Asia but the globe.

Referring to a report on the synthetic drug situation, Inshik Sim, drug programme analyst for Southeast Asia and the Pacific for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said: "Covid-19 has had very, very limited impact and especially in the Mekong region, we don't see much impact of Covid-19,"

"It shows the flexibility of the organised crime groups that have been able to successfully supply methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs into Southeast Asia," said Mr Sim in a discussion in June.

Seventy-one percent of the record seizure of 169 tonnes of methamphetamine in East and Southeast Asia in 2020 were in these five Mekong countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, the UNODC report said. This figure was some 20% more than the 141 tonnes seized in 2019, reflecting a continued rise over the past decade.

"All the lower Mekong except Vietnam seized record quantities of methamphetamine, despite Covid-19" in 2020, Mr Sim added. East Asian countries, in contrast, reported seizures at their lowest rate in since 2013.

The major manufacturing base for synthetic drugs remains clandestine laboratories in Shan State in Myanmar, located in the Golden Triangle where, from 2015 onward, production shifted from heroin and methamphetamine tablets to crystalline methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs, including ketamine.

This "industry" thrives in a pandemic normal, despite travel restrictions, border checks and the deepest global recession in a nearly a century, UNODC and other drug experts say.

Drug syndicates have diversified distribution methods for synthetic drugs -- made from man-made chemicals to mimic the effects of other illicit substances -- to maritime routes, including from Thailand, and online channels. Production has been expanding to Cambodia, and distribution through Laos -- countries that have weaker capacity to seize drugs and identify chemicals for making them, explains the "Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: Latest Developments and Challenges" report released by the UNODC in June.

....
The synthetic drug trade has been expanding production sites and supply chains too. "It's not just about Shan State, Myanmar. We started noticing that Cambodia has been increasingly targeted for synthetic drug manufacturing," Mr Sim said.

In 2020 alone, Cambodia dismantled five labs that had methamphetamine and other synthetics. In August that year, Cambodia reported the seizure in Sihanoukville, on the Gulf of Thailand, of 1.9 million tonnes of methyl alpha-phenylacetoacetate (MAPA), a precursor for methamphetamine, in what Mr Sim called the "first seizure for Southeast Asia" of this substance.

Full article: https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opi ... de-thrives

‘Golden Triangle’ reviving reputation as drugs haven
Lay Samean | Publication date 20 September 2021 | 20:59 ICT

The National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD) has launched an action plan to prevent drug trafficking from the “Golden Triangle” region along the Mekong River, which comprised of portions of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, while urging provincial authorities in five border provinces to step up drug interdiction efforts.

Meas Vyrith, head of the NACD general secretariat, told The Post on September 19 that in order to achieve the implementation of the Mekong River Safety Project agreed on by the six Mekong countries – Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and China – they have selected five provinces as the primary targets for cracking down on drug trafficking from the Golden Triangle region.

“In 2020, Cambodia selected two provinces – Preah Vihear and Stung Treng – for increased anti-drug trafficking efforts. Now in 2021, Cambodia is expanding that to three more provinces.

“In 2021, we selected five provinces along the border where drug trafficking activity is commonly occurring. We have action plans in place . . . for the border provinces to prevent drug trafficking across the borders of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Oddar Meanchey, Preah Vihear and Stung Treng,” he explained.

He continued that the production of drugs from the Golden Triangle region contributes to the supply of illegal drugs in Cambodia’s local markets, leaving many young people affected by addiction or ending up in prison due to the lure of easy money.

Due to the dangers posed by drugs, the governments of the six Mekong countries launched joint regional anti-drug activities to suppress the supply of drugs and narrow the drug market.

He said they were trying to put pressure on the traffickers in the Golden Triangle region by eliminating their smuggling networks and making it harder for them to operate.
More here: https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ ... rugs-haven

Long read:

Cambodia risks becoming a hub in the Mekong region’s thriving drug trade
Uncertainty and turmoil in the Golden Triangle, Southeast Asia's long-time narcotics hub, means syndicates are casting an eye across the Mekong for next steps. With soaring meth seizures, Cambodia is showing signs of becoming central to the region's drug trade
John Wojcik
August 25, 2021

Along Cambodia’s porous 435-kilometre coastline, three major ports support the lucrative shipping industry. Most shipping containers are coming to and from Bangkok and Singapore, but a more illicit business could soon have a major foothold – the region’s booming, multi-billion-dollar drug trade.

On a daily basis, traffickers across the region leverage a range of creative concealment methods, from packing narcotics into pig organs, noodles cartons and common tree nuts, to more sophisticated tactics such as lining large turbines with secret welded compartments and coating layers of liquified product onto rubber floor mats to avoid X-ray detection.

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, attempts to traffic massive quantities of high-grade crystal methamphetamine, heroin, ecstasy, ketamine and other synthetics using these and other methods have intensified, driven by Asia’s organised crime networks and their ability to adapt and innovate.

Yet while the business flourishes generally, widespread trade disruptions and heightened levels of uncertainty in the Golden Triangle – the area where Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet – have syndicates contingency planning for whatever may lie ahead. In that, Cambodia appears to offer an attractive option not found elsewhere in the region.

Several red flags signal that there is a strategic geographic shift in organised criminal activity already underway. However, none of these are more telling than the latest developments in the regional drug trade.

Seizures of crystal meth in the Kingdom have soared this year, exceeding the combined total of the last four years

Representing the financial backbone of Asia’s organised crime groups, the production and trafficking of synthetic drugs in East and Southeast Asia generates an estimated profit of at least $71 billion annually, with meth alone generating $61 billion – four times as much as seven years ago. And while the lion’s share of production continues to happen in the lawless, militia-controlled borderlands of northeastern Myanmar, recent seizures indicate supply channels are diversifying to other parts of the lower Mekong, with syndicates setting their sights on Cambodia.

Seizures of crystal meth in the Kingdom have soared this year, exceeding the combined total of the last four years despite extensive border closures and the disruption of trade and transport networks in the wake of Covid-19. Cambodian authorities have also taken down several clandestine drug labs, with meth manufacture being reported in the country for the first time since 2014.

At the same time, the country has emerged as an important node in regional MDMA manufacture, with the number of dismantled labs totalling more than any other country in Southeast Asia over the past two years. There is a caveat here in that most were reprocessing and tableting sites where highly potent MDMA is ‘cut’ with various adulterants to create the drug ‘ecstasy’.

Also on the rise is the trafficking and transshipment of high-grade ketamine, culminating in a record near-half-tonne seizure in January on an island off the coast of Sihanoukville. But as illicit drug activity continues to surge across the country, the fact that syndicates are increasingly targeting Cambodia as their personal playground shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone.
Full article: https://southeastasiaglobe.com/cambodia-drug-trade/

National Assembly Deputy Speaker Warns of ‘Extreme Volumes’ of Meth Production in Asia
AKP Phnom Penh, June 24, 2022 --

National Assembly First Vice President H.E. Dr. Cheam Yeap warned Friday that synthetic drug production was continuing to grow in Asia.

“Synthetic drug trade continues to expand in East and Southeast Asia, with production and trafficking hitting record levels in 2021,” he told the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) Advisory Council on Dangerous Drugs.

“Extreme volumes of methamphetamine are being produced, trafficked, and used in the region,” he said in his opening remarks, referring to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) last month.

“The synthetic drug trade continues to diversify,” he added.

The Deputy Speaker recalled that the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Drug Matters chaired by Cambodia last year noted “changing trends and patterns in illicit drug activities” in the region — including record seizures of synthetic drugs and the smuggling of non-controlled chemicals used as precursors.

“Other challenges include the increasing trend of foreign drug syndicates connecting with local criminals and online drug trafficking in the ASEAN Member States,” he said.

Mr. Sim Inshik, from the UNODC Regional Office in Bangkok, told the meeting that a “spillover” of methamphetamine from Myanmar was “hitting the region” with crystal meth or “ice” selling for only US$5,000 a kilogramme in Thailand last year — down from more than US$10,000 a kilogramne in 2019.

Despite reported increases in demand, “data is limited and not prioritised,” the UNODC official said. To keep abreast of the region’s evolving synthetic drug market, Mr. Sim Inshik stressed the importance of forensics and early-warning systems.
- AKP