YANGON, (PNA/Xinhua) — The Myanmar Police Force have seized illegal drugs worth 2 billion kyats (2.06 million U.S. dollars in central Mandalay region in the first eight months of 2013, local media reported Tuesday.
The seizure was made in connection with 172 drug-related cases, said the Voice Daily.
In 2012, a total of 203 such cases were exposed with the confiscation of illegal drugs worth more than 2 billion kyats (2. 06 million U.S. dollars
In September this year, more than 60,000 stimulant tablets were seized from a textile shop in a market of Mandalay.
The authorities are taking measures to trace the sources.
Opium production increased in Myanmar, prompting the government to take anti-drug measures including educating poppy growers to stop production and undertake regional alternative development.
The government has added five years to its 15-year drug elimination plan (1999-2014), extending the plan period up to 2019.
The government has also been implementing alternative development projects in the poppy-growing areas, which were destroyed, in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Drug and Crime (UNODC) and the governments of Thailand and China.
In 2012, the government punished 5,740 offenders in connection with 4,006 drug-related cases.