ASEAN Beat | Security | Southeast Asia

Asian Synthetic Drug Seizures Surged to Record Highs in 2025, UN Says

The UNODC warned of a growing convergence between drug trafficking operations and other criminal enterprises, particularly online scamming operations.

The Asian synthetic drug industry continued to expand in 2025, the United Nations said this week, with seizures of methamphetamine and ketamine both jumping to new all-time highs.

In its annual report on the Asian synthetic drug market, released yesterday, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that methamphetamine seizures spiked to 349 tons in East and Southeast Asia in 2025, a 48 percent increase over last year’s record of 236 tons. Ketamine seizures also shattered the previous record, jumping by 185 percent year-on-year, to 52.5 tons.

“Record seizures of both methamphetamine and ketamine in the same year are a sign that the underlying drivers of the regional drug trafficking trade remain firmly in place,” Delphine Schantz, the UNODC’s regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement accompanying the report’s release.

“As production capacity, trafficking networks, and demand expand, it is clear that the market is not contracting, but rather consolidating and expanding into new areas,” she added.

As in previous years, the majority – 94 percent – of methamphetamine seizures occurred in Southeast Asia, “highlighting the immense volume of methamphetamine trafficked through land-based and maritime routes in Southeast Asia,” according to the report.

Most of this emanated from Myanmar’s Shan State, where “the presence of organized crime and non-state armed groups involved in illicit activities,” as well as proximity to Chinese and Southeast Asian drug and precursor markets, has created conditions conducive to the expansion of synthetic drug production.  The UNODC once again noted that this trade has been facilitated by the instability and conflict that have gripped Myanmar since the 2021 coup.

Following up on a trend noted in last year’s report, the UNODC pointed to a growing convergence between drug trafficking operations and other criminal enterprises, particularly Southeast Asia’s giant online scamming centers. It noted the seizure by Myanmar authorities in January of “a cluster of industrial-scale facilities that were manufacturing methamphetamine and other drugs” in two townships in northern Shan State. One of these was operating in “close physical proximity” to a suspected scam site equipped with equipment, including Starlink terminals and laptop computers.

According to the UNODC, this points to “potential cross-investment between illicit drug production,........

© The Diplomat