A 10-minute shoot-out between Thai border security guards and a drug smuggling ring on Tuesday night left one of the gang dead on the outskirts of the Burmese border town of Tachilek, Thai media have reported.

Clearing the area the following morning, Thai police said they found a dead man, aged about 30, with in his possession 4,400 amphetamine tablets, a gun and a hand grenade, Manager Online reported.

On the same evening, at a checkpoint on the road between the eastern Shan State towns of Tachilek and Mong Sert, Burmese police busted a man on a motorcycle carrying 2,950 speed pills.

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And again on Tuesday evening, but this time coming in the opposite direction from Mong Sert to Tachilek, the police special task force on drugs reportedly arrested three men on a motorbike carrying 110 amphetamine pills and a .38 mm pistol.

On Thursday morning, the Burmese police force released a statement claiming that a total of 340,000 amphetamine pills were seized nationwide during the first week of September.

“Between 1– 7 September, a joint force of Myanmar police and army personnel have seized opium, heroine and more than 340,000 tablets of amphetamines,” the statement said, adding that 171 male suspects and 20 female suspects were arrested in 135 incidents.