Eighty-eight illegal migrants were arrested when police raided premises providing them shelter in Bangkok’s Nong Chok district on Thursday night.
Immigration police first arrested four Thai men - Kanthaphon Ekariyaworawat, 45; Sunthorn Sumethanonchai, 43; Euakarn Sawatcharoen, 27; and Wirat Charungphan, 44 - and a Cambodian national identified only as Ouan-ie, 24, in Soi Mitmaitree of Nong Chok district.
Seized from them were a six-wheel truck, a pickup truck, 11 motorcycles, a 9mm pistol and 27 rounds.
Shortly afterwards, 88 illegal migrant workers were caught sheltering in a building on the same street.
New immigration chief Pol Lt Gen Sompong Chingduang said they had been keeping a close watch on the building since receiving a tip-off that illegal migrant workers would be smuggled through the area.
The information paid off on Thursday night when officers spotted a six-wheel truck and a pickup truck entering the area.
Pol Maj Gen Atchayon Kraithong, chief of immigration division 3, said illegal workers would sneak into Thailand across a natural border pass. They would converge at a meeting point, where a smuggler's truck would pick them up and take them to the outskirts of Bangkok. Then they would be sent on to other destinations.
Investigators learned the arrested migrants had paid 2,500 baht each to job brokers, Pol Maj Gen Atchayon said.
Asked about the 11 motorcycles found at the premises, the Thai suspects said they made down payments of 3,000 baht on each of the bikes, and later notified insurance agents that they had disappeared. They told police they planned to sell the bikes in Cambodia.
Pol Maj Gen Atchayon said investigators would look into whether the Thai suspects were part of a human trafficking gang - and if they were involved in organised motorcycle theft.
Authorities pressed charges of illegally possessing and carrying a firearm and assisting illegal migrant workers avoid arrest against Mr Kanthaphon. The three other Thai suspects were charged with assisting illegal migrant workers avoid arrest. The Cambodian arrested with them was charged with illegal entry, as were the other 88.
Immigration chief Pol Lt Gen Sompong Chingduang (left), and Pol Maj Gen Atchayon Kraithong, chief of division 3 (right), lead an inspection of the six-wheel truck seized from migrant smugglers in Bangkok's Nong Chok district on Thursday night. (Supplied photo via Wassayos Ngamkham)