Police arrested a man driving a vehicle containing illegally harvested siamese rosewood logs, or <i>payoong</i>, in Nakhon Ratchasima province on Wednesday, and seized lumber worth about five million baht in the market, a <i> Daily News </i> report said.
A team of police intercepted a farm tractor on a road in Nakhon Ratchasima's Khon Buri district and found four payoong logs hidden under a pile of cassava carried by the vehicle.
Pattana Gotepakwaen, 31, the tractor driver, confessed that he was paid 3,000 baht a trip by a businessman to transport timber from Thap Lan National Park to a cassava factory where another group of people would deliver to clients, according to police.
The man was charged with illegal possession of protected lumber.
A short time the police team were told by an informant that poachers had stashed processed rosewood at a water storage basin, next to a dock, in Khon Buri.
Police searched the area and discovered five rosewood planks.
Since January 2013, three suspected rosewood smugglers have been arrested. Thirty logs and 104 planks of the protected timber worth an estimated 100 million baht on the international market were seized, reports said.