Two alleged drug smugglers were caught with two million meth pills following a gunfight with police in northern Thailand.

Kawee and Supaphong, both 23, were delivering the narcotics shipment across the Thai-Laos border when they were intercepted by officers near a Buddhist shrine in Chiang Rai province on 13.

Footage shows the dramatic moment cops chased after the suspected traffickers through a roadside residential area. One of them shot at the officers, who then returned fire and hit him in the upper thigh, leading to their arrest.

A search of their pickup truck found sacks containing an estimated 2,080,000 meth pills, a Sig Sauer pistol, and several signal jammers.

Police Major General Woraphat Boonma, commander of Border Patrol Police Region 3, said they received intelligence about a major drug shipment from Laos.

He said: 'Police set up a checkpoint along Highway 1016. When the suspect arrived in a bronze Toyota pickup matching the reports, we moved in to arrest them but the pair abandoned the truck and tried to flee on foot.'

Authorities said the injured suspect was taken to a hospital for treatment while his partner was detained for questioning.

Chiang Rai province sits along the Golden Triangle, where most of Southeast Asia's meth supply comes from.

The region is found where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet but it has long been a feral nest of criminal activity, including opium production, meth labs and call centre scam bases.

At the heart of the Golden Triangle lies the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ), run by notorious Chinese business tycoon and suspected crime boss Zhao Wei in the Chinese vassal state Laos. Communist chiefs are said to turn a Nelsonian eye to his wrongdoing.

In 2007, Zhao brokered a deal with the Laos government and obtained a 99-year lease to build the zone on a 39-square mile patch of impoverished Bokeo province.

The Chinese businessman claims to be a benefactor as he touts the GTSEZ as a tourist and economic hub designed to bring more income and investments into the country. However, both local and international law enforcement agencies believe it is a front for organised crime, including human trafficking, drug trafficking, and call-centre scams.

International authorities have struggled to take down the gambling empire as the Laos government itself is said to be protecting the GTSEZ, in which it has a 20 per cent stake.