2 Chinese men croc-ed in northern Thailand for wildlife trafficking

Officers at Mae Sot Customs in the northern province of Tak arrested two Chinese men for wildlife trafficking on Monday.

Mae Sot Customs officers told Channel 7 that they stopped a suspicious pickup truck at the Huay Kralok community in the Mae Sot district of Tak at about 2pm on Sunday, July 28. The driver was a Chinese man named Xue Guoqing. Another Chinese man, Jiao Jianbin, was sitting next to him in the vehicle.

Officers found that the Chinese nationals had not declared to the police the items they had brought into Thailand. Police searched the car and found two animals in white foam boxes on the truck, including a 12-kilogramme crocodile and a 9-kilogramme cobra.

They faced three charges, including:

• Section 92 of the Fisheries Act: illegally importing aquatic animals and aquatic animal products without permission. The penalty is a fine of five times the value of the animal.
• Section 31 of the Animal Epidemics Act: importing or exporting without a permit. The penalty is imprisonment of up to two years, a fine of up to 200,000 baht, or both.
• Sections 242, 244, and 252 of the Customs Act: importing or exporting prohibited goods, and goods that have not been passed through customs processes or without permission.

All of the animals were transferred to Mae Sot Wildlife Checkpoint for further care and health examination.

In a related report, three Chinese nationals were arrested at a condominium in the Prawet district of Bangkok on July 19 because they were operating a call centre scam. They used a SIM box to contact Thai people and tricked them into an investment or job scam.

In another related story, a Chinese couple was deported from Thailand following their involvement in a scandal involving a passport sale billboard written in Chinese at the Huay Kwang Intersection in Bangkok. The Chinese woman was also banned from entering Thailand.

In the most recent case, two Chinese nationals are wanted by Thai netizens after allegedly kicking and running their luggage over a kitten in Soi Phayanak, near Ratchathewi BTS station in Bangkok, leading to its death.