Fifteen Burmese anti-narcotics agents were killed near Tachilek after drug traffickers ambushed them on the Mekong River on Saturday, according to a source at the local police department.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Monday, the source said that the 15 policemen were killed while on patrol boats on the river at 12:30 p.m. On Saturday.
“The drug traffickers ambushed them,” he said. “It was a particularly brutal attack. They fired on the three patrol boats with guns and mortars. All three boats were destroyed.”
The police source said that 12 bodies had been recovered, but that three were missing. He also confirmed that the head of the anti-narcotics squad, Lt Khin Maung Yee, was among the dead.
He added that the local police authorities had requested their Thai counterparts to assist in retrieving any bodies found on the Thai side of the border.
Tachilek is on the Thai-Burmese border in eastern Shan State.
Burmese police sources put the blame for the attack on Shan fugitive Naw Kham, an alleged drug lord who is wanted in Thailand, Burma, China and Laos for drug trafficking.
Naw Kham has been active in and around Tachilek since he became a fugitive in 2006 when a tip-off from Chinese and Thai intelligence services led to a raid at his home in Tachilek and the recovery of a large amount of amphetamines.
Naw Kham is one of the highest profile drug lords of the Golden Triangle and reportedly commands a private militia of about 30 to 40 soldiers.
Despite his notoriety in the region, Naw Kham was not on the most recent wanted list issued by the United States. The 48-year-old Shan was previously loyal to warlord and drug kingpin, Khun Sa.
Burma, Laos, China and Thailand, the four countries in the so-called Golden Triangle region, an area famous for its production of opium and heroin, have said they are all working toward the elimination of drug-trafficking in the region.
Early this month, the Thai anti-narcotics bureau seized 3.66 million methamphetamine pills in Bangkok, which they said were trafficked from Burma.
Most amphetamines and methamphetamines allegedly come from the areas in the Shan State controlled by the United Wa State Army, an armed ethnic group regarded as the biggest player in Burma’s illicit drugs business, according to many official and local sources.
Burmese authorities seized large caches of heroin and amphetamines in Tachilek at least eight times last year.
In July, an anti-narcotics squad reportedly uncovered about 1,000 kilograms of heroin and 340,000 methamphetamine tablets—the largest known haul in Burma last year—in a truck at the Loi Taw Kham checkpoint.
Burma's state-run media reported last week that the authorities had exposed 205 drugs-related cases in January, and seized 11 kilos of opium and six kilos of heroin and other substances.
According to state-run media, the Burmese military regime destroyed 7,893 acres of opium poppy fields in Shan and Kachin states during last year's growing season.
Burma remains the world's second largest producer of heroin after Afghanistan, according to US and UN experts.
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