KANCHANABURI - Officials arrested 40 illegal migrants and seized 1,600 litres of diesel and 1.5 million contraband cigarettes near the Myanmar border in this western province on Saturday night.
About 9pm soldiers and customs officials arrested two men driving two pickup trucks at a permanent checkpoint on Highway 323 in tambon Tha Sao of Sai Yok district. The trucks were carrying big cardboard boxes containing 1.5 million contraband cigarettes.
The cigarettes were Krongthip 90 brand and were for export only and the price ranged from 30-40 baht a pack, while the market price in Thailand is 105 baht.
The drivers, both 32, were identified only as Saharat, a native of Kanchanaburi, and Sumethee, from Suphanburi province.
They allegedly told officials they were hired to pick up the cigarettes at a courier company warehouse in Sangkhla Buri district, Kanchanaburi, and deliver them to a warehouse in Wang Noi district of Ayutthaya.
Early Sunday morning police, soldiers and customs officials found an abandoned pickup truck in Ban Mae Tiew village in tambon Nong Lu of Sangkhla Buri. The vehicle was parked about four kilometres from the Myanmar border.
On the back were eight barrels of diesel - 1,600 litres in total.
Shortly afterwards, the same patrol found 40 illegal Myanmar migrants, 28 men and 12 women, in Ban Nam Kerk village of tambon Nong Lu.
One of the migrants, Kin, 24 from Rakhine, said they fled starvation in war-torn Myanmar to find jobs in Thailand. They had paid 30,000 baht to human traffickers to lead them across the border. She had earlier worked in Thailand and had planned to work here again, as a maid in Chumphon province.
