An AFP report said the cannabis came from a neighboring country, according to Major General Chartee Paisarnsilp, divisional commander of Thailand’s Narcotics Suppression Police.
Investigators said they placed Mohd Nizam Bin Ishak, 34, under arrest after discovering 520 kilograms of marijuana worth $440,000 hidden in the back of his truck on Monday.
The suspect was stopped by authorities at a checkpoint while driving the truck with fake Malaysian license plates as he was about to cross the border in Thailand’s southern province of Songkhla.
During interrogation, the suspect allegedly admitted bringing drugs several times along the same route.
“The suspect confessed to the trafficking charge and said he was hired for 1,000 ringgit ($257) to transport marijuana from Hat Yai (in Songkhla) to a warehouse in Kuala Lumpur,” police Lieutenant General Rawat Klinkasorn was quoted by the AFP as saying in a statement.
The arrest was the latest major bust by the Thai authorities along the route.
Last month, Thai police had busted a Malaysian drug syndicate operating in the south in a series of arrests mostly at train stations.
The operatives arrested at least 21 Malaysians and seized 226 kilograms of methamphetamine and eight kilograms of heroin worth millions of dollars.
Thai police said the bust was one of the biggest against drug smuggling via railways.
Most of the drugs smuggled through Thailand come from the Golden Triangle, an opium-producing area overlapping the mountains of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.
In 2013, the Thai Narcotics Suppression Police arrested six people and seized more than 5.3 million methamphetamine pills worth about $30 million believed to have been smuggled from the Myanmar side of the Golden Triangle.
The bust was one of the largest by the Thai police in years.
