A BUDDHIST monk was caught hiding more than four million methamphetamine pills in his monastery, Burmese police said.

Cops also found a grenade and ammo along with the record haul of 4.2million meth tablets after the monk was stopped with another 400,000 pills in his car.

An  anti-drugs task force had been tipped off that the monk, named Arsara, was carrying an illegal haul when he was stopped driving in the northern Rakhine state bordering Bangladesh.

Local police chief Kyaw Mya Win said: "This is not a normal case, and when we were informed that the monk was arrested, we were all shocked,

"First the police found 400,000 drug pills.

"The police then went to the monk's monastery and found another 4.2 million pills."

Soe Min Tun of the country's religious affairs ministry said: "It is not a very common case, but not impossible to happen.

"What will happen to the monk is that he will have to give up his monkhood right away and face trial as an ordinary person."

RELATED STORIES

Two other monks were also arrested as part of the investigation, police said.

Burma, also known as Myanmar, is one of the world's biggest producers of methamphetamine which is smuggled to neighbouring Asian countries to be sold to clubbers and workers doing long shifts.

It is also a major producer of opium, from which heroin is derived.

Last year police confiscated a record 98 million stimulant tablets, nearly double the 50 million seized in 2015.

Trafficking has particularly been on the rise in Rakhine state, home to more than a million people from the impoverished Muslim Rohingya minority.

In September two men were arrested after 6.2 million methamphetamine tablets were found in their car in Maungdaw, the same village where Arsara was held on Sunday.

Source: Read Full Article