SAMUT PRAKAN: Police are looking for the person who hired two men to drive lorries taking scrap plastic and electronic waste away from a shutdown, illegal grinding plant in Bang Bo district.
The lorries were loaded with large plastic bags containing the waste, which had earlier been seized by the provincial industry office when the plant was forced to shut down.
When stopped on Monday the two drivers told police they were hired for the job and did not know what was inside the bags. They were then treated as witnesses and their names withheld while Khlong Dan police find out who hired them.
The person responsible could face charges of stealing state property and destroying locks and barriers placed at the factory to prevent theft, police said.
Locks were found to have been broken and about a hundred large bags containing the seized scrap plastic and electronic waste were missing from the factory. Two forklifts that had also been seized were used without permission to load it, police said.
The factory, run by Xing Li Co, was recently found to be operating an unlicensed recycling service and several tonnes of waste found stored at the facility were seized for inspection by the provincial industry office. It was shut down and sealed up for violating the Factory Act (1992).
Police said the two men insisted they were just hired to drive the loaded trucks from the factory to Bang Pakong district of Chachoengsao province.
The bags were loaded on to the lorries by workers at the factory, the drivers said. They were not aware what the bags held or that it had been seized by authorities.
The two trucks and their drivers were stopped and detained after provincial industry officials received information from a witness that at least five lorry loads of large white plastic plastic bags had already been taken from the shut down factory, police said.
(Video YouTube/NBT World)
