POLITICAL - INTERNAL SECURITY, OPIUM SMUGGLING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000700210168-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: R
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 10, 2002
• Sequence Number: 168
• Publication Date: March 12, 1953
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2002/08/06 : CIA-RDP80-00809A000700210168-8
WHERE
PUBLISHED
DATE
PUBLISHED
LANGUAGE
bUBJECT Political - Internal security, opium
smuggling
HOW
PUBLISHED Daily newspapers
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY REPORT NO
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS CD NO.
CLASSIFICATir t RESTRICTED
SI ITY INFORMATION
25X1A
COUNTRY Thailand; Indochina DATE OF
INFORMATION 1952 - 1953
Bangkok
5- OOCY.I.t CO. t?I.f I.IO...T1CC ?1.[OT I.O T.t .?TIO..I OCT&.SC
OF US O.I110 ST.,[.. W... 1.[.C?T I.. Or tnlt IF. S[CTIO.S 1S,
ASP 1.+. OF T.[ U.S. COOL. AS ?.[COSD. ITS 1.?.551S3141 00 491t.
L?T104 Or ITS CO.tICI. TO 02 CCC[I.T .1 . .?ut.on zto .15501 5S
.CO.ILttD .1 t... Tr[.1... T-11e. OF 1-1 .O.? -1
DATE DfST. 12- Mar 1953
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
BANGKOK PRESS REPORTS INCREASED SEIZURES OF OPIUM,
FK1ER BANDIT RAIDS AND BORDER VIOLATIONS
Tummary: An increased number of incidents involving the sei-
zure of illegal opium appeared in the Thai press for December 1952
and early January 1953. There was a corresponding decrease in re-
ports on the number of bandit forays and border violations. Most of
the opium confiscation took place in Lampang Province where opium
was concentrated ro. transport, but points along the route to Bang-
kok in Sukhothai and Chainat provinces also appeared in the news.
The ruore serious bandit depredations occured in the south in
Songkhla Province. Authorities received reports that Vietnamese
dissidents had come into Thailand and that Thai and Chinese were
using the southeast coastal islands as a base for illegal entry and
exit.
Numbers in parentaeses refer to appended sources.]
Opium Transport in Lampang Province
On 18 December 1952, the Siam Nikon reported a 4 December 1952 incident in
Region V, Lampang Province, where officials received information concerning the
transport of illegal opium from Lampang Station by freight train. A group of
officers and ten men watching at the station, where a freight car was being loaded
with firewood, discovered two cars of opium hidden in the pile of wood. The
authorities followed when the train proceeded to Mae Chang station, and there
they seized opium in the water buckets on the locomotive and collected 22 cans
of raw opium weighing 250,000 grams, worth one million baht.(1)
In a later issue, the some paper published another story of continued in-
vestigation at Lampang Station. The provincial officials discovered on the Lam-
pang-Phisanulok train, in a third-class coach, three baskets of women[s clothing.
The baskets concealed a cache of opium beneath their false bottoms. The cache
Approved For Release 2002/08/06 : CIA-RDP80-00809A000700210168-8
ILLEGIB
 Approved For Release 2002/08/06 : CIA-RDP80-00809A000700210168-8
25X1A
amounted to 2,700 grams of processed opium and 1,600 grams of raw opium, valued
at 17,200 baht. On 10 December, police learned that a large quantity of illegal
opium was being transported by car from Lampang to Tak. When the police halted
it for a search, they found 81 kilograms of raw opium.(2)
Both ?him Thai and Siam Nikon carried accounts of another confiscation of
opium in Lampang on 17 December 1952. The Excise Officer of Region V, Lampang
Province, informed that opi?un was to be shipped by a Thai Airways passenger plane,
went to the Lampang Airfield. There, aided by provincial police, he inspected a
Thai Airways truck loaded with baggage and confiscated two suitcases which con-
tained 16,000 grams of raw opium, valued at 64,000 baht. When no claimants for
this luggage appeared, the case was turned over to the Chief of the Investigation
Division. (3,4
Opium Seized in Sukhothai and Chainat Provinces
A record opium seizure for Sukhotbai Province, described in a Siam Nikon
article, accounted for 500 kilograms, which was taken on the bank of the Yom River
in Si Samrong Amphoe. In this action, a force of some 20 police surrounded and
captured an "opium caravan" of 46 persons, who were transporting 43 cans of raw
opium and one can of processed opium. The Goveraur of Sukhothai Province, Nai
Chuam Sirisonthi, along with the chief of the provincial police, went to the area
to crake personal observations.(5)
Both the Prachathipatai and Siam Nikon described police action resulting from
a tip that opium was being moved from Nakhon Sawan Province through Chainat to
Bangkok. Forming an ambush with 15 men, the police chief waited on the road for
the car coming from Pak Nam Pho. They stopped a Chevrolet, ..aving a Bangkok
licensd,that was carrying three passengers, and found a quantity of raw and pro-
cesse%_ opium valued at 5 million baht.(6,7)
Opium on Army and Railroad Property
An article in Phim Thai, on 27 December 1952, alleged that the First Army
Command ;.n Bangkom had received instructions from headquarters to take strong
measures to prev;,nt the entrance and storage of illegal opium on Army property.
The article said that the Deputy Commander placed a guard at the gates to search
all cars and established a patrol at night. The night patrol arrested a man with
more than 20 containers of raw and processed opium on Army grounds. The defendant
charged with the illegal possession of opium claimed he was hired to guard the
cache. The court sentenced him to 4 months imprisonment, levied a fine, and con-
fiscated the opium. (8)
Evci'se Department officials, advised that a shipment of opium was arriving
on the Chiang Mai-Gangkok line, boarded the train at Hua Lamphong Station in Bang-
kok on 2 January 1953, according to a report in Phim Thai. After several hours'
search the Opium Control Unit discovered 48 cans hidden in various compartments
of the diesel locomotive. Weighing over half a ton, this illegal opium was esti-
mated to be worth over 2 million baht. The investigating authorities interrogated
the assistant engineer and five others in the crew, because the evidence indicated
that hiding the opium was the work of men on the inside.(9)
Bandit Activity in South and East
According to Phim Thai, a bandit gang of seven, armed with Sten guns. was
operating in Hat Yai Amphoe, Songkhla Province. This gang struck at successive
villages, robbing and terrorizing the people. Local authorities learned that on
2 December 1952 these bandits plundered a house and took the residents as hostages,
and then continued their depredations in Thing Tam Sao and Rattaphum. Two days
later the officials, police, and volunteers engaged in a fight wtth the bandits
at Kam Phaeng Phet, where they killed one and forced the rest to flee. (10)
ILLEGIB
Approved For Release 2002/08/06 : CIA-RDP80-00809A000700210168-8
 Approved For Release 2002/08/06 : CIA-RDP80-00809A000700210168-8
25X1A
ILLEGIB
Although bandit activity in Region III appeased to have abated, Siam Nikon
of 3 January 1953 reported that officials on an investigative trip had fired upon
a band of 16 men under the bandit chief, Plang Chomram.(ii)
Border Crossings by Bandits and Dissidents
According to another article in the same issue of Siam Nikon the Ministry
of Interior reported satisfactory results for the bandit suppression campaign
begun in July 1952 in the border provinces of Regions II and III. Charging that
bandits in Thailand and Indochina were crossing the boundary to plunder, the Min-
istry urged the border units t..) p^rsevere in their efforts to maintain order.
The Ministry added that notorious bandit leaders had assembled their men in Prachin
Buri, Chachoengsao, 'and Chantaburi provinces of Region II and in Surin and Buriram
provinces of Region III.(11)
A Siam Nikon reporter, recounting a Laos border incident, stated that Excise
Department officers in Kong Khai Province had kept under surveillance a group of
Vietnamese agricultural workers. Becoming suspicious of bundles carried into a
field shed., the officials raided the place at dawn and found there four adults who
had French typewriters and handbills of various types. They caught one m^n working
on seditious leaflets. These individuals were remanded Lo the police authorities
at Nakhon Phanom for subsequent interrogation. (19)
In Sisaket a Chinese merchant was arrested after Communist newspapers and
documents were found in his possession, according to a Siam Nikon account of
25 December 1952.(13)
An article in the 13 December 1952 issue of Prachathipatai reported police
investigation of the entrance of an unregistered boat into Thai waters at Ko Kradat,
Trat Province. Movements of Chinese and Thai strangers on the coast of Trat,
Rayong, and Chantaburi provinces provided grounds for the supposition that the
islands near the border were hiding places for revolutionaries. The writer of the
article suggested that both Chinese and Thai made their contacts in this area and
effected their illegal entry into and exit from Thailand through use of boats
from the islands.(14)
1. Siam Nikon, 18 Dec 52
2. Siam Nikon, 22 Dec 52
3. Phim Thai, 24 Dec 52
4. Siam Nikon, 24 Dec 52
5. Siam Nikon, 20 Dec 52
6. Prachathipatai, 30 Dec 52
7. Siam Nikon, 31 Dec 52
3. Phim Thai, 27 Dec 52
9. Phim Thai, 4 Jan 53
10. Phim Thai, 21 Dec 52
11. Siam Nikon, 3 Jan 53
12. Siam Nikon, 20 Dec 52
13. Siam Nikon, 1 Jan 53
14. Prachathipatal, 13 Dec 52
Approved For Release 2002/08/06: CIA-RDP80-00809A000700210100