Smuggler arrested in Chumphon with 200 exotic Indonesian animals
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Smuggler arrested in Chumphon with 200 exotic Indonesian animals

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Police seize baskets containing smuggled exotic animals in Sawi district, Chumphon, on Saturday. (Police photos)
Police seize baskets containing smuggled exotic animals in Sawi district, Chumphon, on Saturday. (Police photos)

CHUMPHON: A man was arrested with about 200 exotic animals on his way from the deep South to Bangkok.

The white Subaru vehicle of the suspect, identified only as Sarawut, 43, was stopped at a petrol station on Highway 41 in Sawi district on Saturday as police were tipped off of a plan to smuggle exotic animals from Indonesia to Thailand.

Pol Col Arun Wachirasrisukanya, deputy commander of the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division, said that the animals from Indonesia were smuggled into Thailand via a pier in the southern province of Satun and were being delivered to buyers in Bangkok.

Police searched the vehicle and found 17 baskets containing about 200 animals in total. They included 70 snakes, 49 skinks, 40 lizards, five Sulawesi bear cuscuses, four Sulawesi hornbills, three small-clawed otters and a Javan gibbon.

The suspect said a man contacted him via the LINE chat application and hired him for 10,000 baht to drive the vehicle from Satun to Bangkok. He said he was aware that wildlife smuggling was illegal but was tempted by the money.

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