Officials from the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation have found illegal logs of wood worth about 33 million baht in a warehouse in Phetchabun.
Panatchakorn Potibandit, director of the preventive and suppression strategy unit of the Forest Protection and Fire Control Office, yesterday said rangers from a special unit had raided a warehouse and found 30 Narra logs.
Nine were smuggled from the forest reserve of Phu Soi Dao National Park in Uttaradit province. Officials also found 50 pieces of Burmese rosewood timber, 51 Burmese rosewood logs and 59 Narra timbers, said Mr Panatchakorn.
Officials believed the logs of wood, worth a total of 33 million baht, belonged to a deforestation gang who had stored them at the warehouse before smuggling them out to neighbouring countries.
Mr Panatchakorn said officials had filed a report to police against the owner of the warehouse.
A more thorough investigation is now underway to track down the gang's associates.
Earlier on Saturday, police from Thep Sathit police station and officials from the Forest Resource Management Office in Chaiyaphum province raided the hideout of a deforestation gang that cut Narra trees in Ban Huai Hin Fon of tambon Na Yang Klak in Thep Sathit district.
They found five suspects. They ran away and only one woman could be arrested by the police.
Saifon, 40, a local in Chaiyaphum, was found with an electric chainsaw.
She was sent to Thep Sathit station and police are now looking into the financiers behind the deforestation gang.
Authorities also found over 60 large Narra logs being processed. Police said the gang transports the illegally sourced logs to foreign customers.