A 23-year-old Cambodian man was yesterday charged with smuggling and ordered detained in Thailand after being arrested on Saturday for transporting 40,000 methamphetamine pills into the country in bags on his motorbike, police said.

Kao Heng was arrested in Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province after illegally crossing the border with several black bags of the pills, according to a Thai police report provided by Pin Chharng, a cross-border communications officer at the Boeng Trakuon Checkpoint.

According to the report, the suspect, who lived in Banteay Meanchey province, said he was hired by a Cambodian man named Phal Chuol to smuggle the “health supplements” for sale to Thai customers. He said he was paid 50,000 Thai baht, or about $1,430.

“I didn’t know that they were drugs, because [Chuol] hired me and . . . told me they were health supplements,” he told police, according to the report.

The pills were sent to the Sa Kaeo provincial court as evidence, and the court yesterday decided to detain the suspect temporarily on charges of “illegal transnational trafficking”, Chharng said.