Two Laotian men were arrested Sunday night with nearly 2 kg of methamphetamine after an exchange of gunfire with police in Stung Treng province near the Laos border, a military police official said Monday.
The firefight occurred in the jungle near the border in Thala Barivat district’s O’Svay commune, and lasted about five minutes, according to Ing Vandy, military police commander for Stung Treng. Two other Lao nationals escaped.
“They used AK-47s to spray our military forces with bullets, and we used handguns to fire back at them but no one got hurt,” Colonel Vandy said, adding that the two Laotians with guns had fled back across the border.
He said that the two who were apprehended—Thaoku Soulinha, 50, and Vanphorng Pannharat, 61—were carrying two large bags containing 1.959 kg of methamphetamine, and that one of them was also the ringleader of the operation.
The two men were being questioned Monday at the Stung Treng military police station.
“We will send them to the court after the questioning is finished, but they speak Laotian so it is difficult for us to understand them,” Col. Vandy said.
In a separate incident on Friday, the Ministry of Interior’s anti-drug police and the Stung Treng provincial anti-drug police cooperated to arrest a man in Siem Bok district who was also in possession of nearly 2 kg of methamphetamine.
Sok Mengsay, 37, was arrested at his home in O’Russei Kandal commune’s O’Chrolong village with 1.811 kg of methamphetamine and is now in pretrial detention, according to Lieutenant Colonel Nou Hour, provincial anti-drug police chief.
