A 65-year-old Malaysian drug dealer dubbed the 'Iceman' has been sentenced to death after he hired a man to smuggle nearly 300 kilogrammes of crystal meth in Southeast Asia's 'Golden Triangle'.

Tun Hung Seong was handed the death penalty by a court in Thailand today, after he was convicted of running a narcotics network that funnelled huge profits into legitimate businesses.

He was arrested at Hat Yai Airport in April last year after Thai cops received a tip-off that he had hired a man to smuggle the crystal meth known as ice through the violence-scarred south.

Thai law enforcement standing behind packages of 'Ice' or crystal meth, and ketamine during a press conference at the Office of the Narcotics Control Board in Bangkok

Tun Hung Seong, dubbed 'The Malaysian Iceman, pictured in custody following his arrest on suspicion of trafficking methamphetamine from Thailand to Malaysia in April last year

Investigators believe he acted as a gatekeeper to the Malaysian drug market just over the border, and laundered money through karaoke bars, hotels and restaurants.

The Bangkok court convicted Tun on drug trafficking charges alongside two Thai women and a Taiwanese man.

All four were sentenced to death, although the sentences of the Taiwanese man and one of the Thai women were reduced to life imprisonment due to their 'useful' confessions.

Situated along the drug-running routes of the 'Golden Triangle', Thailand provides overland routes for the smuggling of meth from factories in lawless parts of neighbouring Myanmar and Laos, in a trade estimated to be worth $40billion a year.

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Drug seizures across the region have shot up to record levels in recent months.

Malaysian authorities said in May that they seized a record 1.2 tonnes of crystal meth from Myanmar hidden in tea packets, believed to be the largest ever in the country in terms of value and weight.

Thailand torched more than six tonnes of narcotics in June, most of it meth.

From October to July this year, about 1,705 drug cases were reported in the kingdom, compared to 453 in the same period the year before.

Suspects convicted of serious drug offences face harsh sentences in Thailand in one of its many overcrowded prisons.

The country carried out its first execution since 2009 when two drug dealers were executed in June this year, after previously sending signals it would abolish the practice.

Theerasak Longji, 26, was executed by lethal injection at Bang Kwang Central Prison north of Bangkok in June after he was found guilty of murdering a 17-year-old boy in 2012

His death was condemned by human rights group Amnesty International as a 'deeply misguided' effort to reduce crime.

He was the seventh person to be executed by lethal injection since Thailand introduced the method in 2003 to replace execution by firing squad.

This article originally appeared on : DailyMail