Police found five registered long-barrel guns and four elephant tusks in one of three houses in construction tycoon Premchai Karnasuta's residential compound in Bangkok Wednesday.
The houses of three other people arrested with the president of SET-listed Italian-Thai Development Plc in the World Heritage Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary in Kanchanaburi province on Sunday were also searched on Wednesday. Police said they found nothing of interest.
On Wednesday morning police arrived at the large residential compound of Mr Premchai on Soi Sun Wichai 3 in Huai Khwang district. Police kept ringing a doorbell for 15 minutes without getting a response. They then used a megaphone to attract attention from the premises.
Police were armed with a warrant to search three houses - numbers 12/1, 12/2 and 12/3 - in Mr Premchai's compound.
After Mr Premchai's lawyers arrived, the search began at house 12/3. It took more than two hours. Pol Col Suwat Inthasit, deputy commander of the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Division, said that police found five long-barrel guns with scopes and two pairs of elephant tusks.
Four guns were registered as belonging to Mr Premchai and the other to his son. There were also documents registering possession of the tusks. Police would examine the guns to see if they were only collectables or were used.
Police did not see Mr Premchai, who was released on bail of 150,000 baht from Kanchanaburi on Tuesday. His wife facilitated the police search on Wednesday.
Police also found an elevated pickup truck, but saw no traces of any object have been removed from the house.
Elsewhere, police searched the house of Thanee Thummat in Muang district of Kanchanaburi, the house of Yong Dodkhruea in Ban Pong district of Ratchaburi, and that of Mrs Nathee Riamsaen in Prathai district of Nakhon Ratchasima. They found nothing of interest there.
The three people did not live there. Present at the registered house of Mr Thanee, 56, was his father-in-law Wichian Ekcha-um, 79, who said Mr Thanee and his wife sold food at Klong Toey market in Bangkok and stayed in Bang Kruai district of Nonthaburi.
Mr Yong, 65, and Mrs Nathee, 43, are employees of Mr Premchai's ITD. On Wednesday Mr Yong was at his Ratchaburi house, where he normally stayed on holidays only, police said.
At Mrs Nathee's house, her parents said she had not returned there for about three years, since she had a job at ITD.
The four were arrested in the World Heritage wildlife sanctuary on Sunday with carcasses of protected wild animals, including a 1.48-metre-long Indochinese leopard, a Kalij pheasant and a common muntjac, also known as a barking deer, as well as three long-barrelled guns and ammunition.
The black leopard was skinned and earlier reports said the suspects had a soup of its tail and meat. The four people face nine charges which carry possible fines and prison terms.
The charges are: unauthorised hunting in a wildlife sanctuary, unauthorised hunting of protected wildlife, unauthorised possession of protected wildlife carcasses, unlawfully poaching in the wildlife sanctuary, conspiring to hide wildlife carcasses, illegally bringing hunting tools to the wildlife sanctuary, unauthorised entry of the wildlife sanctuary, collecting forest items in reserved forest and illegal possession of firearms.