Myanmar police seize heroin hidden in golf balls

YANGON, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Police in military-ruled Myanmar have seized more than a kilogramme of heroin stuffed inside 46 golf balls destined for Taiwan, a newspaper has said.

The Pyi Myanmar weekly said yesterday workers at a courier office in former Burma's colonial era-capital, Yangon, became suspicious when a young woman dropped off a parcel for delivery to Taipei, but left before filling out the necessary paperwork.

When police arrived, they discovered the balls were fake and each contained a small bag of around 25 grams of heroin.

Myanmar is the world's number two producer of opium, the raw material for heroin, behind Afghanistan.

Most of its poppy fields are in the lawless mountainous region of the eastern Shan state, near the borders with Laos and Thailand -- the so-called Golden Triangle.

REUTERS BDP VA RAI0929