Thai police arrest suspected kingpin of wildlife trafficking
BANGKOK (AP) — Thai police have arrested a suspected kingpin of wildlife trafficking who allegedly fueled much of Asia’s illegal trade for over a decade, officials said Saturday.Boonchai Bach, a 40-year-old Thai of Vietnamese descent, was arrested Friday
in the northeastern border province of Nakhon Phanom in connection with the with smuggling of 14 rhino horns worth over $1 million from Africa into Thailand last month.
Boonchai allegedly ran a large trafficking network on the Thai-Laos border that spread into Vietnam. According to the anti-trafficking group Freeland Foundation, he and his family played a key role in a criminal syndicate that has smuggled poached items
including ivory, rhino horn, pangolins, tigers, lions and other rare and endangered species.
Thailand is a transit hub for trafficked wildlife mostly destined for China, and was considered to have the largest unregulated ivory market in the world before it introduced the Elephant Ivory Act of 2014 and 2015 to regulate the domestic ivory market
and criminalize the sale of African elephant ivory. Rhinoceros horns, pangolin scales, turtles, and other exotic wildlife are still repeatedly smuggled through Thailand.
Steve Galster, founder of Freeland, said Boonchai’s arrest breaks open Thailand’s "largest wildlife crime case ever." "This network is connected to a group of moneymen who may be living outside the country. We are working to get arrest warrants out
on those people as well," said Gen. Chalermkiat Sriworakhan, deputy police commissioner.
Three years ago, Thailand froze $37 million in assets linked to a tiger trafficking ring in the country’s northeast, after investigation helped by Freeland. In 2016, a court order seized Thai bank accounts and other assets, including a house worth $142,000,
belonging to Chumlong Lemtongthai, a Thai who was convicted in South Africa on rhino horn trafficking charges. Chumlung hired prostitutes to pose as hunters, and organized sham expeditions during which 26 rhinos were killed, according to
court documents. Customs papers were then doctored for shipping the rhino horns to Laos.
"We have been looking at this syndicate for over a decade now," said Onkuri Majumdar, a program officer from Freeland. "They have tentacles all over Africa and Southeast Asia. They are responsible for the slaughter of thousands of endangered animals including
rhinos and elephants. And let’s not forget rangers in Africa who have died, killed by poachers financed by men like Boonchai."
Associated Press / Naples Herald
By Tassanee Vejpongsa
Kaweewit Kaewjinda
contributed to this report.
