Phuket
DNA tests for two more Phuket baby elephants

PHUKET: Officers raided two locations last week suspected of housing baby elephants illegally snatched from the wildand conducted DNA tests on the two animals to determine their parentage.
Officers suspect that the two elephants are the offspring of a wild elephant in Kaeng Krachan National Park.
Both elephants had microchips in their ears and the necessary registration and transfer forms, but officers are suspicious because the documents were issued by the Muang Chaiyaphum District Office, which is suspected of issuing fraudulent papers, explained Col Watcharin Phusit from the Regional Natural Resources and Environment Crime Suppression Division.
“The DNA will be sent to Kaeng Krachan to be matched with DNA in herds there,” Col Watcharin told the Phuket Gazette.
The search last week comes in the wake of allegations of an elephant trafficking network operating on Phuket and after baby elephants were found to be missing from Kaeng Krachan National Park.
“We launched a nationwide investigation,” said Col Watcharin.
“Then at the Muang Chaiyaphum District Office we found registration papers for two baby elephants out of the 61 documents on file,” explained
“A Phang Nga man purchased both of the elephants for about 500,000 baht from Tabsakae District of Prachuap Khiri Khan and brought them down to Phuket,” Col Watcharin said.
One of the two elephants tracked down last week was at an elephant camp on Big Buddha hill, an area that took heat during a spate of baby elephant raids and subsequent DNA testing last year (story here).
Police suspect the two-year-old elephant housed at the camp is illegally owned.
“It did have a microchip embedded in its left ear, but its registration papers were from Muang Chaiyaphum District Office, so we took a blood sample and will look for a DNA match,” Col Watcharin said.
Also at the site police found and seized nine blank elephant registration documents and several microchips believed to be illegal.
The second elephant under investigation was found at the private home of Tassapol Laokom,54, in Sri Sunthon.
“Mr Tassapol had the registration documents for “Pimai”, and the elephant did have a microchip embedded in its ear. However, the registration documents were also issued by Muang Chaiyaphum District Office,” said Col Watcharin.
“I paid 800,000 baht for the elephant in Patong in 2011. I bought it because it had registration documents that made me believe it was legal,” Mr Tassapol told officers.
If the registration documents were illegally issued by Muang Chaiyaphum District Office, Col Watcharin confirmed that his office would take legal action by cancelling all fraudulent documents, seizing associated elephants, and transferring them to the national park.
The investigation last week follows the denial by Phuket’s head Livestock officer that tourism is the driving force behind an elephant-trafficking network supplying the animals for jungle tours.
Phuket Provincial Livestock Chief Weerasit Phutthipairote issued his denial after two other elephant raids – one on Big Buddha hill and one in Phang Nga, last week (story here).
The investigation into illegal elephants in Phuket, Phang Nga, and Krabi was ordered by the Central Investigation Bureau, explained Maj Gen Sriwara Rangsitprahmkul, who led the raid along with Col Watcharin.
Maj Gen Sriwara said that elephant-trafficking in Phuket had “become critical.”
This was denied, however, by Phuket Provincial Livestock Chief Weerasit Phutthipairote, who joined the raids.
“I believe the elephants in Phuket are not the product of an illegal-trading network, because the companies in Phuket use them for trekking tours and performances,” he explained.
“However, I cannot comment any further on the possibility of an illegal-elephant trading network in Phuket [serving other purposes],” he added.
During the raid on last Tuesday on Big Buddha hill, the investigation team identified 10 elephants they believe may have been illegally seized from the wild.
Officers seized one elephant identification microchip and nine elephant registration documents, which Gen Sriwara said would be handed over to the Phuket Provincial Livestock Office.
Chief Weerasit explained that that his office would establish whether or not the microchip and registration documents were forgeries.
The camp, which police refused to name, was targeted because it has a record of exchanging elephants with one of the camps raided in Phang Nga, explained Chief Weerasit.
— Kritsada Muenhawong
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Crime
2 shot dead at Phuket Bus Terminal Saturday night

Police say 2 men were gunned down at the Phuket Bus Terminal by a colleague at the terminal along the stretch of Thepkasattri road heading into Phuket Town last night. The incident happened at about 10:15pm with the local police chief arriving along with medical staff from Vachira Hospital shortly after the incident.
60 year old Wian Iadchuthong, the alleged gunman, was waiting to surrender at the scene when police arrived. Police say Wian appeared to be drunk and told them he had a serious argument with the 2 men and decided to take their lives with the gun. Police say they found 50 year old Yod Sae Lee lying on the ground in front of a taxi service stand, badly wounded. He was given CPR before being rushed to Vachira Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
54 year old Prakob Chuthong was also found lying dead by the counter of a 24 hour car park service kiosk. Police say he had been shot 2 times, once in the left side of his head and once in his left rib cage, according to Bangkok Post.
Witnesses say before the shooting, Wian was quietly drinking alone. But after getting drunk, he walked to the counter of the car park service kiosk and allegedly fired 2 shots from a 9mm gun at point-blank range, killing Prakob instantly. Wian then ran towards Yod, who was sitting in front of the taxi service stand. Yod saw Wian coming at him with the gun and he ran away to 1 side of the terminal building, only to be intercepted by Wian who allegedly fired 5 shots. Yod was hit 1 time in the head, 2 times in the torso and 2 times in the legs. Yod was also rushed to Vachira Hospital where he later died.
An initial police investigation found that the 3 were close colleagues at the workplace, but often engaged in heated fights over motorcycle taxi and taxi services at the bus terminal.
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
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Tourism
Phuket lifts mandatory quarantine restrictions for ‘high risk’ arrivals. But were they ever applied?

Culminating 2 weeks of mass confusion over the apparent mandatory self-quarantine for arrivals to Phuket from Bangkok and other high risk provinces, Phuket’s provincial communicable disease committee has agreed to lift the mandatory 14 day quarantine “to help boost the local economy hit by the Covid-19 pandemic”.
But for the vast majority of arrivals from Bangkok (DMK and BKK) to Phuket there wasn’t even any mention of quarantine. Over the past 2 weeks, since Phuket’s Governor released a 3 page announcement about new restrictions for the island, people have mostly been coming and going as usual. The only additional impediments were all arrivees having to download and fill in the Mor Chana app and registering with gophuget.com.
In 2 weeks not a single person has reported to The Thaiger that they had been forced to self-quarantine. Last night, when checking in at Suvarnabhumi airport for a Thai VietJet flight to Phuket, the person at the Check-In counter told the passenger (we’ll call them Mic to protect their identity) they would have to serve 14 days in state quarantine upon arrival in Phuket. Mic, surprised, asked for some sort of confirmation of this from airline management or information from the Phuket Provisional officials. None was forthcoming. Nothing more was said or communicated to the passengers.
When the plane landed in Phuket officials checked that passengers had completed the Mor Chana app and scanned their phones after they’d completed the gophuget.com registration. And that was it. No mention of quarantine.
The situation has been repeated by other Thaiger staff over the past 2 weeks as well, but without any mention of quarantine during the check-in or boarding procedures with various airlines. In all cases they flew from Suvarnabhumi or Don Mueang airports.
Phuket’s Governor Narong Woonciew says the decision to ease the Covid-19 restrictions for visitors followed calls from the business community seeking to lure visitors to Phuket. (The Thaiger wonders if any of these officials had actually travelled over the past 2 weeks)
Local businesses met with provincial authorities on Friday proposing an end to the mandatory quarantine period “for people travelling from certain high-risk areas” in the hope of “stimulating the tourism industry”. The proposal was less about stimulating and more about raising the industry from its current flatline.
But whatever mandatory quarantine they were asking to be lifted appears to be have been, at best, loosely applied anyway.
Phuket has has a triple hit. The first when the borders were closed in April and the international airport closed. The second was when December arrived, the start of the busy tourist high-season. The third was the new restrictions added 2 weeks ago in response to the 2nd wave of clusters that started on December 20, tripling the total number of Covid infections in the country in just over a month.
According to Bangkok Post, Sarayuth Mallum, president of the Phuket travel industry council, says… “strict disease control measures remain necessary to protect local people and tourists from contracting the virus”.
Somehow, the mandatory quarantine requirement instructions never reached the airport officials. But, for now anyway, the “restrictions” have been lifted anyway. What was you experience arriving in Phuket over the past week? Were you asked to conduct a mandatory 14 day self-quarantine?
In the meantime the struggling domestic airlines have been forced to massively cancel or reschedule flights. Over the past 2 days most airlines only had 1 or 2 flights to and from Phuket and Bangkok, down from the 4 – 10 daily flights some airlines were offering.
More about the Mor Chana App here…
More about the direct effects on the island of Phuket…
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
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Crime
Phuket national park officer fired over peeping Tom incident

A national park officer has been fired after being accused of spying on a woman in the public toilet on January 17 at Phuket’s Sirinath National Park. 28 year old Abdulrama Mahaderi, was accused by a woman named Sopita and her boyfriend Panupong Rungrueng of climbing a wall that separates the men’s and women’s sections of the toilet at Nai Yang beach in order to look at Sopita. Abdulrama allegedly also had his mobile phone in his hand.
Sirinath National Park Chief Pramote Kaewnam confirmed that an investigative committee had spoken to witnesses and determined that Abdulrama was guilty of “misbehaviour and improper actions.”
Pramote confirmed that Abdulrama’s employment contract was then terminated, effective last Wednesday, 3 days after the incident allegedly took place. On its Facebook page, the Sirinath National Park made a post about the incident.
“It has caused disgrace to the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation and affected the image of the overall department.”
Sura Lertthaisong of Sakhu Police confirmed that Abdulrama would be facing charges and that he was currently investigating whether a charge of “bullying in public” under Section 397 of the Criminal Code would be appropriate.
Abdulrama had previously posted on the official Sirinath National Park Facebook page that his understanding was that no charges would be pursued by Sopita and Panupong.
“The tourists told me that they did not want to press charges. They just told me that they did not want me to do anything like this again.”
But after Panupong posted a photo of Abdulrama, detailing his alleged indiscretion on social media, others came forward with similar accusations.
“One group of women said that they were also spied on by this man on the toilet wall 2 months ago, but they did not report it and did not press charges – and the truth faded away as if nothing ever happened.”
SOURCE: The Phuket News
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