Thailand connects the dots on arms trafficking

Cha-am and Bangkok (Thailand), 31 August 2026 – The squad in full tactical gear moves low along the wall, weapons raised. “Assault team, proceed with caution. Commence operation,” the commanding officer tells the men in Thai.

“Copy that. Out,” they reply. “Go, go, go!”

The men crouch, signal to each other with their hands, and storm in.

“Suspects in the building. Captured.”

From a distance, it looks like a video game come to life. But these men are real officers participating in a simulation exercise organized by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) this past May. The three-day training, staged at the Royal Thai Army’s Naresuan Training Center, near Cha Am on the Gulf of Thailand, was part of a broader project bringing together police, prosecutors, customs officers, forensic experts and military officials from across the country’s security establishment.

After arresting the role-play suspects inside the house, the officers learned the crucial next step: how to collect forensics evidence at the crime scene.

“When a suspect is arrested, the weapons found with them can be turned into evidence, which means they need to be photographed, marked, logged and traced,” said Niki Esse de Lang, UNODC’s Regional Research and Programme Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism.  “Mapping the network that put the guns there in the first place is the aim behind our work with Thai authorities.”

As a longstanding transit hub linking South Asia, South-East Asia and the Middle East, Thailand has become a key battleground in the fight against illicit firearms. With support from UNODC, authorities have spent the past year turning crime scenes into intelligence opportunities, rather than case files that close once a weapon is seized.

Sold like phones

Guns rarely start out illegal. In many cases, they are stolen from legitimate owners, diverted from licensed dealers, assembled from parts bought online, or smuggled across land borders where enforcement is thin. By the time a weapon turns up at a crime scene in Bangkok or a jungle camp somewhere in the region, it may have passed through two or three countries and half a dozen hands.

Law enforcement usually treats a recovered firearm largely as evidence of a single crime: a robbery, an armed assault, a homicide, i.e. the case in front of them. This training was built around a different idea: that a gun, itself, has a history that can be traced and used to uncover the wider organized criminal or terrorist network.

A firearm owner is supposed to register a weapon with the authorities. The problem is that, once this weapon is resold, it becomes harder to track. And there are some weapons that cannot be registered as they are illicit by their very nature, such as 3D-printed weapons, converted blank guns, or Pradit guns, a type of improvised firearm homemade in Thailand.

“After seizing the weapon, what happens next? What is the evidential value of the firearm in the criminal process? It is important that we know how to enforce the law, but also that we understand firearms law, the mechanics of how a legal weapon slips into illegal hands,” said Pol. Col. Chitphol Kanchanakit, who works directly on firearms enforcement in Thailand, and who heavily participated in the project.

In Thailand, a license for firearms ownership lasts a lifetime, with no requirement to reregister or check back in with authorities. Yet in reality, firearms change owners frequently. “You can sell a weapon like any other asset... some people sell it like phones,” he added.

Thai law allows firearms ownership for property protection and, in some border areas, against insurgent threats, with minimum age and health requirements already in place.

Local gun, global problem

Arms can be funneled to non-state armed groups, criminal gangs, or broken down and sold off in pieces. Once a weapon is diverted, it could end up anywhere.

Some of this is already visible just across Thailand’s western and northern borders. UNODC’s De Lang pointed to Myanmar, where armed groups have begun manufacturing their own weapons rather than relying solely on smuggled ones.

“Non-state armed groups in Myanmar are using 3D printing,” De Lang said. It's just a matter of time, he adds, before that know-how spreads further into the region. He also flagged a recent development that regulators globally are still catching up on: toy and blank-firing guns modified to fire live rounds, like in the attack that happened in the Siam Paragon shopping mall in Bangkok back in October 2023.

Most countries have separate policy tracks for counterterrorism and for arms control, he added, and “there’s no one entity that can cover all that alone. That’s why it’s necessary to work together.”

Hernán Longo, Programme Management Officer with the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), agreed that many countries maintain separate policy tracks for counter-terrorism and arms control, highlighting the importance of a dedicated policy framework that specifically addresses the prevention of and response to the terrorist use of weapons.

Referring to the international nature of the threat, Longo said: “When illicit firearms trafficking is left unaddressed, its impacts can extend far beyond national borders. A diversion, theft or illicit transfer in one country can contribute to violence and insecurity elsewhere months or even years later.”

He described the challenge as constantly evolving, with criminal networks often adapting rapidly to technological developments and enforcement measures. "This requires governments to continuously assess emerging risks and adapt their responses," he said. "As more illicit activity moves online, international cooperation becomes even more important. Law enforcement agencies need trusted channels and established mechanisms for information sharing so they can act quickly and effectively when required."

Longo added that part of the role of international cooperation frameworks is to help ensure that collaboration does not depend solely on personal relationships. “Effective cooperation needs to be supported by institutions, procedures and long-term partnerships,” he said. “You cannot rely solely on the goodwill of individuals; structural mechanisms are needed to enable and sustain cooperation.”

Bringing prosecutors into the room

Another part of the training looked beyond the moment of seizure, focusing on how a case, and the intelligence hidden within it, must survive the demands of the courtroom and remain actionable when it reaches the desk of a foreign counterpart.

Puvadet Prommakrit, a provincial public prosecutor of the Office of the Attorney General, which serves as Thailand’s focal point for the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), noted that the value of the project was less about firearms specifically than about getting agencies that rarely speak to each other into the same room. “This initiative brings together all the agencies involved... learning different perspectives from different professionals.”

His office's role is less visible than those involved in raids, but no less critical: facilitating mutual legal assistance, the legal and diplomatic framework that enables Thai investigators to obtain evidence from, and share evidence with, counterparts abroad. Understanding how the Firearms Protocol to UNTOC is implemented on the ground, he said, helps prosecutors “know the trends and what agencies are doing” and do their own work more effectively.

Arms trafficking, along with drug trafficking and cyber fraud, is a Thai law enforcement priority, Prommakrit said, and Thailand’s position at the crossroads of the region means it sees the consequences firsthand of cases, he said, where weapons “end up in the wrong hands.”

From local crime scenes to national, regional and global policies

By the training’s final day in Thailand last month, the conversation had shifted from crime scenes to policy. Warisa Intaratana, who is working on drafting Thailand’s National Security Policy, emphasized the value of understanding how various forms of transnational crime feed into one another.

“We cannot talk about weapons trafficking without addressing other organized violence and the shared infrastructure of the illicit economy,” she said, noting that the initiative reinforces key priorities she is currently incorporating into the Thai policy process: confronting the rapid adoption of technology that accelerates the convergence of criminal activities across jurisdictions and physical-digital domains—from tracing logistics and financial flows to combating cybercrime across online marketplaces and the dark web.

The UNODC-organized events were financially and substantively supported by the United Nations Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms Regulation, known as UNSCAR, which is overseen by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA).  Tak Mashiko, UNSCAR Manager at UNODA, underscored the importance of ensuring that local efforts, good practices, and data collected in Thailand inform regional and global processes.

“It is commendable that Thailand has been consistently submitting its national reports to the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons since 2012, including its 2026 report.

In early June, the lessons and outcomes from this project were introduced into global discussions in New York, where Member States gathered for the Ninth Biennial Meeting of States (BMS9) on the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons, and for a side event on UNSCAR’s broader role in supporting that agenda.

Originally published by UNODC