Sa Kaeo resident nabbed smuggling rosewood to Cambodian investor
A 47-year-old local man was arrested on Sunday night while illegally transporting blocks of Siamese rosewood, weighing around 1,000 kilograms in total, in a sedan from Buri Ram for delivery to a Cambodian investor in the Rong Klua border market of Sa Kaeo’s Aranyaprathet district.
Sa Kaeo resident Sonthaya Pimprathok was arrested in the market area following a tip-off from the Special Branch Police Division that rosewood smuggled from Buri Ram’s Non Din Daeng district would be delivered in a Toyota sedan with a Bangkok licence plate to a Rong Klua-based Cambodian investor late on Sunday.
Officers found the wooden blocks stuffed inside the car and under the hood.
Sonthaya initially admitted to police that he had been hired to transport the rosewood from Non Din Daeng to the border market in exchange for a Bt6,000 payment.
He said he had undertaken two similar deliveries before his arrest on this occasion.
On Monday morning, Sonthaya was taken from his detention cell in Khlong Leuk police station to witness the Special Branch Police’s counting of the confiscated blocks of rosewood, which numbered 80, and for interrogation with a view to widening the net to catch his accomplices.