Long a hub of the heroin trade, the Golden Triangle — where the remote and lawless corners of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet — has in recent years seen transnational cartels turn it into one of the world's premier meth laboratories, according to the UNODC. Protected by government-backed militias and ethnic rebel armies in Myanmar's eastern Shan state, the U.N. agency says the cartels’ drugs pour across Southeast Asia and on to more lucrative markets as far off as Australia and Japan. The UNODC now puts the meth market in East and Southeast Asia at some $61.4 billion a year.

Since the pandemic, drug seizures have kept pace with 2019 as well, or even picked up.

In early July, Thai authorities said they intercepted 1.42 tons of crystal meth on its way to Malaysia. In May, authorities in Myanmar announced Asia's largest drug bust in decades, netting 200 million meth pills and 500 kilograms of ice; they also seized 35.5 metric tons and 163,000 liters of precursor chemicals and arrested 33 suspects.

Cont'd:
https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/covid-19-no-match-southeast-asias-booming-drug-trade