Asian synthetic drug production reached “unprecedented levels” in 2024, the United Nations said this week, with drug seizures in East and Southeast Asia reaching an all-time high.
In its annual report on the Asian synthetic drug market, released late on Wednesday, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that a record 236 tons of methamphetamine were seized last year by the region’s governments, 94 percent of it in Southeast Asia. This marked a 24 percent increase over the 190 tons seized in 2023, which in turn followed seizures of 151 tons in 2022 and 171.5 tons in 2021.
“The 236 tons represent only the amount seized; much more methamphetamine is actually reaching the market,” Benedikt Hofmann, the UNODC’s acting regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement accompanying the report’s release.
Hofmann said that this increase in seizures was a result of “unprecedented levels of methamphetamine production and trafficking” from the Golden Triangle, the area where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos converge. A large majority of this comes from Myanmar’s Shan State, where ongoing conflict, fractured state jurisdictions, and proximity to Chinese and Southeast Asian drug and precursor markets has created conditions “conducive” to the expansion of methamphetamine production and trafficking,
In this respect, the civil war in Myanmar has played a significant role in the recent drug boom. The country’s intensifying conflict has “heightened the reliance on drug-related proceeds while simultaneously disrupting law enforcement responses,” the report stated. “Since the military takeover in Myanmar in February 2021, flows of drugs from the country have surged across not only East and Southeast Asia, but also increasingly into South Asia, in particular Northeast India.”
The report noted that the transnational drug gangs operating in East and Southeast Asia are also are becoming “increasingly agile and tech-savvy” and have proven their ability both to evade efforts by regional law enforcement to crack down on the narcotics trade. Such syndicates “operate through flexible, cell-based networks that outsource drug transport to local actors, such as drivers and fishermen, to minimize their exposure to law enforcement authorities.” They have also grown adept at concealing their abundant profits, by taking advantage of “advanced money laundering and underground banking networks.”
In this respect, the UNODC noted a “growing convergence between drug trafficking syndicates and other criminal groups,” including those involved in “underground banking, illegal online casinos, and cyber-enabled scams.”
As an example of this adaptability, the UNODC noted the rapid expansion of the overland trafficking routes running from Shan State to Cambodia via Laos and to a lesser extent Thailand, reflected in the fact that in 2024, Cambodian authorities “reported by far the largest methamphetamine seizures in history.” UNODC also noted the increasing significance of maritime trafficking routes linking Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with Sabah in Malaysia now emerging as a one of Southeast Asia’s “major maritime trafficking hubs.”
The latter trend was illustrated by Indonesia’s seizure on May 20 of two tons of methamphetamine from a fishing boat in the vicinity of the Riau islands, which the country’s anti-narcotics agency believed originated in the Golden Triangle, and was bound for markets in maritime Southeast Asia. This followed a similar sized seizure of methamphetamine and cocaine by Indonesian authorities in the same area in mid-April.
The UNODC report also noted that while most countries in the region have reported an overall increase in the use of methamphetamine and ketamine, the number of drug users in the older age group has grown in some nations.
“Some countries in the region, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, have reported consecutive increases in the number of older drug users, while the number of younger users has declined,” the UNODC report states.
The reason for the latter decrease was unclear, it added, but that it may be a result of drug use prevention campaigns implemented to outreach the youth population. Hoffman said that in the face of steadily worsening drugs crisis, “it will be key for the region to increase investment in both prevention and supply reduction strategies.”