Mohan Sinha
05 Jul 2026

BANGKOK, Thailand: Drug trafficking groups in Thailand are targeting certain travelers, including flight attendants, to help carry drugs to other countries.

Police Major Suriya Singhakamol, Secretary-General of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), in Thailand, said these groups get drugs from nearby countries where they are produced in large amounts. They then move the drugs through Thailand by hiding them in items like clothes, coffee packets, and vases.

In neighboring Myanmar, the growing of opium poppies, which are used to make heroin, reached its highest level in ten years in 2025, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in December.

Due to the ongoing conflict and economic problems, many farmers there are turning to illegal drug production. Myanmar is now the world's main source of illegal opium, especially as production in Afghanistan has gone down.

Early in the morning on June 18, a flight attendant in Bangkok received a message on TikTok from an unknown account. The message asked if she was flying to Australia and if she could carry items for money. The 30-year-old ignored it.

A few days later, on June 21, another flight attendant from Thai Airways was arrested for trying to bring more than one kilogram of heroin into Australia, hidden in tote bags.

The Bangkok flight attendant said she never replies to such messages and that airline staff are regularly warned not to carry items for others. She asked to stay anonymous because the issue is sensitive.

Authorities said the TikTok account, called "Powder is Powder," was linked to drug networks that use fake social media accounts to find people to transport drugs. The account has now been shut down, and investigations show that it used multiple names.

Thai Airways said it has strict rules for employees and will cooperate with authorities.

In the case of the arrested flight attendant, she had first posted in a social media group offering to carry items overseas for money. She later communicated with a Facebook user and agreed to a payment of 8,800 baht (about US$265).

The heroin she carried was hidden inside the lining of bags and was worth about 500,000 Australian dollars on the street, according to Australian police.

Using similar methods, drug networks had planned to send five more packages from Bangkok to Australia and Taiwan. However, authorities stopped them and seized over 24 kilograms of heroin hidden in items like traditional goods, silk clothes, coffee sachets, and winter jackets.

So far, Thai authorities have arrested two suspects, a Thai man and his wife from Laos, who are believed to have sent drug parcels from a border area to Bangkok.