COP RAID NETS ILLEGAL WOOD WORTH B36M
SAMUT PRAKAN: One Chinese man and three Myanmar men were arrested at a warehouse in Samut Prakan province after forest officials and a security team raided it and found 400 pieces of illegally acquired precious wood worth 36 million baht, which they were preparing to load into containers for shipping to China.
In an operation named “Dawn at Phraek Sa”, teams from the Royal Forest Department, Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc), Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Division (NRECD) and local police yesterday raided a warehouse in tambon Phraek Sa in Samut Prakan’s Maung district after being tipped off that wood stolen from forests in the north and northeastern regions was being stored there.
The team found 400 pieces of wood, or about 60 cubic metres worth, being prepared for transport in containers to China. Most of the pieces were Siamese rosewood and Burma padauk.
The haul had a domestic value of 36 million baht but would be worth 10 times more on the Chinese market.
The police arrested Ma Chenghong, 36, from China, together with three men from Myanmar on charges of illegal possession of protected wood.
Their punishment, if found guilty, is up to 20 years in prison, a fine of up to 2 million baht or both.
Attapol Charoenchansa, deputy chief of the Royal Forest Department who is also a commander of the Forest Protection Command, said Mr Ma had cooperated with police and provided details of his network back in China so crime-busting agencies in both countries could work together to find more culprits.
“We are looking for the Thai national who rents the warehouse. His name has now been placed on our natural resources crime list. We are taking legal action against him under the forest law, and also for suspected money-laundering,” he said.
A source who asked not to be named said the suspect is a military man who had signed a contract to rent the warehouse between March 2018 and Feb 28, 2019 under the pretext of using the space to stock construction materials.
He said the crime network usually sends an order to local wood poachers to cut down the trees and forward them to the warehouse, after which the pieces are shipped to China.
The source added the warehouse is useful due to its proximity to the seaport in Chon Buri province.
In the past, many raids have been made on warehouses in the province due to the prevalence of stolen wood in other similarly located warehouses.
Mr Attapol said the department is ramping up efforts to suppress the trade in stolen wood due to fears that a large volume of wood from the forest will be “mixed” with precious wood from private land, which a new law is likely to allow people to cut down and sell.