By SUTIN WANNABOVORN / AP WRITER | BANGKOK — A Taiwanese drug trafficker was arrested at a Thai beach resort with 229 pounds (104 kilograms) of heroin worth millions of dollars in a joint operation by American, Taiwanese and Thai drug enforcement authorities, officials said on Monday.
 Thai Deputy Police Chief Gen Preiwphan Damaphong, right, and US Drug Enforcement official Andre Kellum, second from right, pose with Thai police officers and 261 bars of heroin at a news conference in Bangkok. (Photo: AP) |
Police found 229 pounds (104 kilograms) of heroin pressed into 261 bars and stuffed into cylinders hidden beneath the cement floors of a house Kuo was renting, Priewphan told a news conference. He said police also arrested a Thai accomplice, Phongthat Pongsathirsakul, 29.
The confiscated heroin has a local value of more than 100 million baht ($2.9 million), a Thai police statement said, adding that its street value abroad would be about 10 times that amount, or $29 million.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration had been tracking Kuo and alerted Thai authorities in August that he had entered the country, Priewphan said.
Police moved in to make the arrests on Sunday after receiving information that the heroin would be shipped out of Thailand in the coming days, he said.
"This heroin had come from the Golden Triangle and was going to be shipped to Taiwan before going to markets in Western countries," Priewphan said. The Golden Triangle is a heroin-producing area where the borders of Burma, Laos and Thailand converge.
DEA official Andre W. Kellum said he could not elaborate on the heroin's destination since the investigation was ongoing.
The case is "very significant because a kilo of heroin on the streets of America goes for a great deal of money," he told the news conference.
Drug trafficking in Thailand is punishable by death.
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