AFP helping Thai authorities nab record drug seizures
Editor’s note: Audio grabs and photos available via Hightail
The AFP helped its partner law enforcement agencies in Thailand seize more than four tonnes of drugs destined for Australia last year, and that success is continuing this year.
Thai law enforcement agencies working in the joint Taskforce Storm with the AFP seized almost four tonnes of methamphetamine and heroin transhipped through Thailand on its way to Australia in the 2023-2024 financial year – the most narcotics seized in a single year on its way to Australia from Thailand.
In the first three months of the 2024-2025 financial year, the AFP and its Thai partners seized another 633kg of ‘ice’ and heroin destined for Australia during a range of joint operations.
The largest single seizure among the more than four tonnes of illegal drugs detected by Taskforce Storm was 453kg of ‘ice’ thought to be destined for Australia in May 2024.
The largest seizure this financial year is 90kg of heroin seized by Thai authorities in August 2024.
Taskforce Storm – comprising the AFP, Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), Royal Thai Police (RTP), the Department of Special Investigations (DSI), and the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) – stopped these dangerous narcotics before they could reach Australia and inflict harm on the Australian community.
The 2023-24 seizures by Taskforce Storm were worth almost $4 billion in street value to the criminal syndicates who plotted to sell them to Australians.
AFP Assistant Commissioner David McLean said the AFP’s relationship with its partners in Thailand is almost as old as the organisation itself, with the AFP’s Bangkok post established in 1984.
“Taskforce Storm and our wider partnerships are incredibly important in combating the threat posed by transnational serious organised crime and the illicit drug trade to the communities of Australia, Thailand and surrounding countries,” he said.
“The AFP works in partnership with Thai authorities to stop Thailand being used as a transit country between drug producers in nearby countries and drug users in Australia. We do this through intelligence-sharing and joint operational activity to target and disrupt these organised crime groups at production and transit points.
“Helping local law enforcement targeting the drug trade at its source in multiple locations around the world is the most effective way for the AFP to help stop drugs before they reach our communities, or wreck destruction in various communities along the way.
“Local police have the benefit of local knowledge, and the AFP is committed to working in partnership with our overseas partners on solutions that serve both of our communities. As the Taskforce Storm result show, we are stronger when working together.”
ONCB Director of Narcotics Law Enforcement Bureau, and chair of Taskforce Storm, Prin Mekanandha, stressed the importance of law enforcement partnerships in combatting the drug trade in the region.
“Drug trafficking is a transnational crime that needs international collaboration as the issue comprises many cross-border aspects such as production, smuggling, and using Thailand as a passageway for transportation.”
Royal Thai Police Narcotics Suppression Bureau (NSB) General Noppasit said that the NSB is cooperating with numerous countries, including Australia, to counter the impact of the illegal drug trade.
“Australia is interested in interdicting narcotics from the point of origin and analysing drug profiles to identify the facility that made it, and identify the persons who are related to it, and the NSB continues to support this.”
The AFP’s International Command has AFP liaison officers based in Thailand to provide operational support, intelligence and facilitate training to Thai law enforcement to help combat transnational and serious organised crime in the region.
To assist Thai authorities in combatting increasingly-sophisticated criminal syndicates, the AFP has provided cybercrime investigations and digital forensics training to almost one thousand Thai law enforcement members in the last 18 months.