ENGLISH DEYEA NEWS

By THE IRRAWADDY | Three alleged members of the network operated by late drug kingpin Khun Sa have been arrested in Thailand and assets worth more than 117 million baht (US $3.3 million) seized, the English language Bangkok Post reported in its online news service on Friday.

Quoting Thai Justice Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga, the newspaper said the arrests were carried out on Thursday by officers of Thailand’s DSI special investigations unit at the request of the US Drug Enforcement Administration. It identified the three as Peerayuth Patsakon, who was arrested in Chiang Rai province, Charnnarong Muser, apprehended in Chiang Mai, and Vicharn Suthipan, who was caught in Bangkok.

Pirapan said Charnnarong and Vicharn denied drug trafficking charges, but Peerayuth confessed to having sold a total of 750 kilograms of heroin and 'ice' methamphetamine in the last year.

Charnnarong, who is a relative of Khun Sa, had only recently been released in the US after serving a sentence there for smuggling heroin into the country, DSI deputy chief Dusadee Arayawut said.

Dusadee said the fathers of Vicharn and Charnnarong had been arrested on drug charges 19 years ago.

Khun Sa, who died in Rangoon in October 2007, was the son of a Chinese father and Shan mother.

He founded in 1963 a local militia in Shan State loyal to the Burmese government, which provided him with money and weapons to help the Burmese army fight Shan rebels.

Khun Sa later renamed his militia the Shan United Army and turned to opium smuggling, setting up a base inside northern Thailand in the village of Ban Hin Taek. He joined forces with the Tai Revolutionary Council of Moh Heng and controlled the whole Thailand-Burma border area from Mae Hong Son to Mae Sai and became one of the key figures in opium smuggling in the Golden Triangle.

Khun Sa surrendered to the Burmese army in 1996 to avoid facing drug smuggling charges brought by the US, which had offered a US $2 million reward for his arrest. He was held under house arrest in Rangoon, where he died at the age of 73.