‘Thai trafficker’ arrested, 2 others surrender

A suspected human trafficker was arrested and two wanted others involved in the crime surrendered before police in Satun province, reports Bangkok Post.

The arrestee was Abu Ha-ura, a member of the Satun provincial administration organisation (PAO) representing Khuan Don district, Deputy Police chief Ake Angsananont said in a press conference at Provincial Police Bureau headquarters in Songkhla.

He said two other people who are members of Abu's trafficking network had surrendered, but he did not identify them.

Pol Gen Ake said warrants had now been issued for 49 people suspected of involvement in the trafficking of Rohingya and other victims from Myanmar and Bangladesh, of whom 15 of them had been arrested. The 34 others were still on the run.

He said police had taken all of the arrested suspects to the Nathawi Provincial Court to seek permission for their detention pending further interrogation. They were denied bail by the court.

Pol Gen Ake said two police officers subject to arrest warrants have been dismissed from police service.

Searchers, meanwhile, have found another body, believed to be of a Rohingya victim of human trafficking, at a deserted cemetery in Ban Koh Yai in tambon Padaeng Besar in Songkhla's Hat Yai district.

The body was found accidentally as officials were digging up an area in the cemetery with an excavator to bury 13 bodies of the Rohingya people which had been earlier found and examined by forensic doctors of Songkhla Nakarin Hospital.

The body has been sent to Songkhla Nakarin Hospital for a postmortem examination.