Police to update diplomats on investigation
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DIPLOMATS from 50 countries have been invited to a 10.30am briefing on Tuesday by the Royal Thai Police on the investigation into trafficking of Rohingya and other migrants.
Police will give an update on progress made so far, national police chief Pol General Somyot Poompanmoung said yesterday.
He said he had been informed of a request from Malaysian authorities for access to the Thai border to transport dead bodies found in several graves on the Malaysian side across from Songkhla province. The request has been forwarded to Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, he said.
Consideration to allow this was ongoing, he said.
Meanwhile, two more suspects linked to human trafficking surrendered to police recently, bringing the number in custody to 51 – out of the total of 77 who are sought, a deputy police chief said yesterday.
Police are set to freeze another lot of assets belonging to different suspects worth a total of around Bt60 million, in addition to Bt84.5 million already “frozen” and subject to permanent seizure, Pol Maj-General Phutthichart Ekkachan, deputy chief of Provincial Police Region 9, said.
The two new suspects were village chief Sa-ari Khrem, 47, based in Sadao district in Songkhla, and his relative Charoen Thongdaeng, 50. Both allegedly operated via a trafficking network run by former Padang Besar mayor Banjong “Ko Jong” Pongphol.
Meanwhile, the officer said some 10,000 people living in Ranong, Satun and Songkhla provinces were taking part in a police scheme to help monitor the movement of migrants smuggled into the country or abandoned in jungles by traffickers amid the crackdown.
Police have set up 64 checkpoints in the three provinces at potential trafficking locations using more than 500 officers.
No new activities or arrests have been reported, he said.
Senior public prosecutors and provincial chiefs are working with police, as trafficking activities were carried out in other countries, which made human smuggling a transnational crime.
