Southern Thai woman caught with 70 bizarre animal carcasses

Police arrested a woman from Songkhla province in southern Thailand for selling protected wildlife carcasses as ingredients for “exotic dishes.”

Officers seized nearly 70 animal carcasses including monitor lizards, pangolins, langur monkeys, squirrels, mouse-deers, and civets.

Yesterday, the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Division was tipped off that a passenger was carrying protected wildlife on a train from Sukirin district in Narathiwat province to Jana district in Songkhla province.

Police waited at Jana Train Station and spotted a “suspicious-looking” woman, 55 year old Kankamon, carrying two big cooler boxes off the train and heading toward her parked car.

Inside the coolers, police found over 50 kilograms of dead protected wildlife including seven monitor lizards (10 kilograms), one pangolin (4.5 kilograms), two langur monkeys (9.5 kilograms), 54 squirrels (10.5 kilograms), two mouse-deers (2.5 kilograms) and two civets (10.5 kilograms).

Kankamon confessed to selling the carcasses via social media to people who eat “exotic dishes.” She said she bought the protected wildlife from a man named Sur from the Sungai Kolok district of Narathiwat province.

The carcass merchant said she makes a “pretty good profit.” Depending on the species, she will make 120 to 500 baht profit per kilogram. Monitor lizards sell for the most, she told police.

Police arrested Kankamon under suspicion of violating the Wildlife Preservation and Protection Act (2019) by possessing and selling carcasses of protected animals without permission. She faces imprisonment for up to 10 years, a fine of up to one million baht, or both.

Busting Kankamon is just the start of the police’s investigation. Police said they will now investigate her customers and also track down Sur who allegedly sold her the protected wildlife.

In November, two crime-fighting beagles at Suvarnabhumi Airport sniffed out bats and other undeclared meat in a suitcase that flew in from Kunming in China.

Thailand’s health officials recommend steering clear of eating bats or any other “exotic” animals because they contain harmful pathogens that could cause disease.