UN Office on Drugs and Crime says ‘explosive growth’ in synthetic drug trade led to record seizures of methamphetamine in East and Southeast Asia in 2024.
Drug production and trafficking has surged in the infamous “Golden Triangle“, where the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has warned in a new report on the scale of the regional trade in synthetic drugs.
The UNODC said a record 236 tonnes of methamphetamine were seized last year in the East and Southeast Asia regions, marking a 24 percent increase in the amount of the narcotic seized compared with the previous year.
While Thailand became the first country in the region to seize more than 100 tonnes of methamphetamine in a single year last year – interdicting a total of 130 tonnes – trafficking of the drug from Myanmar’s lawless Shan State is rapidly expanding in Laos and Cambodia, the UNODC said.
“The 236 tons represent only the amount seized; much more methamphetamine is actually reaching the market,” the UNODC’s acting regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Benedikt Hofmann, said in a statement.
“While these seizures reflect, in part, successful law enforcement efforts, we are clearly seeing unprecedented levels of methamphetamine production and trafficking from the Golden Triangle, in particular Shan State,” Hofmann said.
Transnational drug gangs operating in East and Southeast Asia are also showing “remarkable agility” in countering attempts by regional law enforcement to crack down on the booming trade in synthetic drugs.
Myanmar’s grinding civil war, which erupted in mid-2021, has also provided favourable conditions for an expansion of the drug trade.
“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 states.
The UNODC’s Inshik Sim, the lead analyst for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said countries neighbouring Myanmar are becoming key trafficking routes for drugs produced in the Golden Triangle.
“The trafficking route connecting Cambodia with Myanmar, primarily through Laos PDR, has been rapidly expanding,” Sim said, using the acronym that is part of Laos’s official name, the People’s Democratic Republic.
“Another increasingly significant corridor involves maritime trafficking routes linking Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, with Sabah in Malaysia serving as a key transit hub,” he said.
Evolving, cell-based transnational organized crime groups based in East and #SoutheastAsia are increasingly adopting technologies across the entire drug supply chain while converging with other organized crime activities.
Read more in our latest report: https://t.co/oL416cuZJ3 pic.twitter.com/pqUfX5FmnF
— UNODC Southeast Asia-Pacific (@UNODC_SEAP) May 28, 2025
The UNODC report also notes that while most countries in the region have reported an overall increase in the use of methamphetamine and ketamine – a powerful sedative – 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, adding that the age trend needed to be studied further.
The UNODC’s Hofmann said the decline in the number of younger drug users admitted for treatment may be due to targeted drug use prevention campaigns.
“It will be key for the region to increase investment in both prevention and supply reduction strategies,” he added.