NAKHON RATCHASIMA: A combined government unit arrested 12 Cambodians at a rubber plantation in Khon Buri district for illegally entry. They were suspected of being hired to cut down protected payung trees in the Thap Lan National Park on Sunday.
The unit, comprising soldiers from the 2nd Army Region's peace-keeping forces, administrative officials, police and community leaders in Khon Buri district, raided a rubber plantation near Ban Thung Takhin in tambon Khok Krachai after local villagers reported that a group of migrant workers had gathered there red there early on Sunday morning.
The officials found 12 Cambodian nationals in the plantation and arrested them. According to officials, they confessed to have sneaked into the country illegally through a natural border channel along the Thai-Cambodian border on the instructions of a group of Cambodian investors, who told them they would be transported from the rubber plantation to Khon Buri district town before being sent to other parts of Thailand for jobs that paid a daily wage of as high as 10,000 baht each.
However, the officials suspected they had illegally entered the country to fell payung trees and smuggle the timber across the border, since many other groups of Cambodians had been arrested in Khon Buri district for this purpose.
They were taken to the Zone 3 office of Thap Lan National Park for questioning.
