Burmese authorities arrested a woman with 1,000 amphetamine pills at her home in Kaw Thaung, Tenasserim Division, marking what intelligence sources say is an increase in amphetamine trafficking through the Thai-Burma border’s southernmost crossing.

According to a source close to the Sa Ya Pha military intelligence in Kaw Thaung, the arrest was the first such large-scale arrest in three years.

The IMNA source, who spoke with Sa Ya Pha officers who made the arrest, said the woman admitted to purchasing the pills from a smuggler who brought the pills from Three Pagodas Pass Township, in Mon State.

“The woman admitted that the pills were ordered from Three Pagodas Pass by a buyer in Ranong, but the smuggler stopped in Kaw Thaung due to travel difficulties,” the source told IMNA over the phone.

According to the intelligence sources, the amount of amphetamines smuggled into Thailand from Burma by moving south through Mon State and Tenassermin Division has increased in the last year. In the past, drugs bound for southern Thailand were most often trafficked through the Mae Sot and Three Pagodas Pass border crossings.

Though the northern border crossings undoubtedly continue to see drug trafficking of higher volumes, according to the Sa Ya Pa source the woman explained that traffickers are bringing southbound pills through Burma because transporting them through Thailand is expensive and difficult.

Her explanation was confirmed by a source close to an amphetamine smuggling group affiliated with the Karen Peace Front in Three Pagodas Pass, which is loosely allied with Burma’s military government. The KPF group has a southbound smuggling network, he said, though he denied any connection to the pills recently confiscated in Kaw Thaung.