Indonesian authorities have made two major drug busts in Sumatra that led to the seizure of more than 2 tons of ketamine and methamphetamine, authorities said on Friday.

National Police Chief Gen. Suyudi Ario Seto told a press conference that police and customs officers intercepted a ship carrying 1.1 tons of ketamine in the waters off Sumatra on October 20, the AFP news agency reported.

The tanker MT Global 168 was intercepted after intelligence officers detected irregularities in its route through the Malacca Strait and the Andaman Sea. It was then taken to Belawan Port in North Sumatra for inspection.

“From this search operation, the joint team managed to seize illicit drugs in the form of ketamine HCL (hydrochloride). The evidence was found in 58 sacks with a total weight reaching 1.16 tonnes,” Suyudi said, adding that the shipment had an estimated value of 3.48 trillion rupiah ($210 million).

The police chief added that the MT Global 168 flew the Mongolian flag but is owned by a company based in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

The following day, Suyudi added, in what the National Narcotics Board (BNN) described as a joint operation with the National Narcotics Control Commission of China, Indonesian authorities raided a clandestine drug laboratory in Aceh province’s Pidie regency. There, they seized around 1.2 tons of liquid and crystal methamphetamine, assorted equipment for converting liquid into crystal meth, and arrested 11 suspects, including two Chinese nationals. Authorities put the value of the drugs at around 2.16 trillion rupiah ($119 million).

“The back-to-back operations underscore how Indonesia remains a major target for international drug trafficking organizations,” Suyudi said, as per the Associated Press.

The AP added that Indonesian authorities are investigating possible connections between the meth lab and drug syndicates in China, Malaysia, and Indonesia, as well as criminal groups in the Golden Triangle – the tri-border region between Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos – a region long associated with large-scale narcotics production and trafficking.

The two drug operations, which come after the seizure in August of 1.3 tons of ketamine from a ship near the Riau Islands, reflect the booming state of the illicit drug trade in Southeast Asia.

In its most recent annual report on the Asian synthetic drug market, released in June, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that methamphetamine seizures spiked to a record 349 tons in East and Southeast Asia in 2025, a 48 percent increase over last year’s record of 236 tons. Last year was also notable for a surge in ketamine seizures, which rose to 52.5 tons, a whopping 185 percent increase on 2024’s total.

The majority of last year’s methamphetamine seizures – around 94 percent – occurred in Southeast Asia. As The Diplomat explored in a video last week, most of these narcotics are produced in areas of Myanmar controlled by rebel groups and militias of various stripes. While drug production in Myanmar is nothing new, production and trafficking have spiked since the military coup of 2021.

The resulting conflict, chaos, and economic dysfunction have created lucrative opportunities for criminal syndicates. The civil war has weakened the state’s hold on outlying regions of the country, where most drug production has historically been concentrated, while disrupting law enforcement efforts and heightening the nation’s reliance on drug-related proceeds.

As a result, flows of narcotics from Myanmar have increased in all directions. In its June report, the UNODC noted the increasing trafficking of drugs via maritime routes, for the purposes of “both domestic distribution and transit trafficking to third countries.”

In addition to Indonesia, last year saw record seizures in Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, and the Philippines, including numerous multi-ton seizures.