Myanmar junta claims capture of giant jungle meth labs
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A Myanmar soldier guards a methamphetamine lab captured by the military near Namlan in Shan State on Jan 14.
PHOTO: AFP
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NAMLAN, Myanmar - Myanmar’s junta on Jan 14 said it had captured three record-sized jungle laboratories responsible for making a third of all the methamphetamine seized in the country last year.
The South-east Asian country has long been a hive for the illegal drug trade, but analysts say the civil war triggered by a 2021 military coup has increased production and trafficking.
A kaleidoscope of rebel factions control different swathes of Myanmar, and all sides are accused of using narcotics proceeds to fill their war chests and fund their administrations.
AFP journalists joined a military-organised press tour through the smouldering wreckage of two former labs south of the town of Hsipaw in north-eastern Shan state.
They were the size of modest villages, with their own roads, living quarters and elaborate power and water infrastructure.
A Myanmar police officer shows off methamphetamine in a captured drug lab near Namlan in Shan State on Jan 14.
PHOTO: AFP
Gas masks and rubber gloves littered the floor, pipework production facilities still gurgled, and barrels stood full of what police officials said was crystal methamphetamine, ready to be ground and pressed into pills.
“This is the biggest seizure and destruction by an anti-drugs operation in our history,” junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told reporters in the town of Pyin Oo Lwin.
Police said they believed the three affiliated facilities produced more than a third of the 37 tonnes of methampetamine seized in 2025, based on informant tip-offs and a comparison of the tea and coffee bags the traffickers used to conceal drugs.
A combined opposition offensive starting in late 2023 saw the military lose huge parts of Shan state to rebels.
However, China-brokered ceasefires have peeled off two of the most powerful rebel groups.
The Myanmar military said it discovered the meth labs when it took back lost ground from rebels as the fighting lulled. AFP
