Police launched a major investigation into a well organised gang smuggling large quantities of protected phayung wood (rosewood) from Thailand to China with a raid on two warehouses and seizure of 15 tonnes of timber in Samut Prakan on Thursday morning.
About 15 tonnes of illegally harvested logs and planks were confiscated and seven men arrested, two of them Chinese nationals.
Police and forestry officials searched two warehouses in Soi Nam Daeng 17, tambon Bang Kaew of Samut Prakan’s Bang Phli district around 9am acting on information that poached phayung wood was being shipped from there to China.
The raid was led by deputy national police chief Srivara Ransibrahmanakul and Chaiwat Limlikit-aksorn, head of the Paya Sua special task force of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation.
They discovered many illegally harvested phayung logs and cut planks in nine large shipping boxes. Other logs were piled up on the floors of the two warehouses, which are in the same compound. The timber weighed over 15 tonnes,
Five workers were caught at the warehouses. Police subsequently arrested two Chinese nationals at a hotel in Thung Mahamek area, Bangkok.
The five workers were identified as Kittiporn Pimollerdmongkhol, who admitted being the caretaker of the two warehouses, Weerawat Thaweewattana, Supoj Aryi, Suwit Aryi and Supat Aryi. The Chinese nationals were named as Hong Jia Hua and Chen Jai Jun, 46.
Mr Kittiporn, 37, a native of Chiang Rai’s Mae Fa Luang, told police he was also a tour guide and could speak Chinese. The wood was to be smuggled out of the country to China.
He was hired to take care of the warehouses and was the contact for customers.
The Chinese men had contacted him asking to buy logs. They had been referred him by two other Chinese nationals who had previously bought timber through him.
He also implicated a Thai man, identified only as Thae, in the smuggling of the logs. Some of the timber was cut in Cambodia, the caretaker said.
Pol Gen Srivara said the timber was worth about 35 million baht in Thailand, but far more overseas. It was a large smuggling gang with international contacts, he added. There was evidence the gang had been using the two warehouses to store logs preparatory to shipment since December last year.
Police are now looking for a shipping agent identified only as “Tong’’.
The deputy police chief said there had been previous shipments of logs from these two warehouses. He wondered how the shipments had sailed through the Customs Department’s X-ray scanning. The investigation would be extended to find those involved.
All suspects were held in police custody for legal action. They have been charged with colluding in the illegal possession of a wood from a protected species, illegally having large chainsaws for wood processing, and attempting to export prohibited goods.
They also faced a fine of four times the value of the goods.
