About 100 planks of processed endangered timber were seized from a pickup truck after it crashed into a roadside power pole in Lampang’s Thoen district on Tuesday morning.
Police were informed of the accident on Thoen-Thung Saliam Road in tambon Mae Pa in Thoen district around 6am.
A badly damaged pickup truck with a Nakhon Si Thammarat licence plate was found abandoned at the scene of the accident. The back of the vehicle was covered with a tarpaulin and when police checked underneath it they found more than 100 planks of wood cut from various endangered tree species.
Local forestry officials called to inspect the cargo said the planks, each about 1.5 metres long, 20 inches wide and 5 inches thick, were worth over 300,000 baht in total.
A police investigation concluded that the pickup truck was travelling from tambon Wiang Mok, an adjacent area of Sukhothai’s Thung Saliam district, to deliver the illegally cut wood but ran off the road and into a power pole in Thoen district.
It was believed timber poachers processed the wood from illegally felled protected trees in Mae Wa national forest reserve, which links the two northern provinces.
Police said it appeared the driver fell asleep, crashed the vehicle and fled.
The crashed vehicle's registration was being traced to find the owner, who would be charged with illegal possession of protected wood, police said.