Thread: Three arrested, four Phayung logs seized in Nakhon Ratchasima crackdown

Alerted by a video camera, a team of forestry officials arrested a group of illegal loggers early on Saturday in Nakhon Ratchasima's Wang Nam Khiew.


Three suspects were arrested at 4.30am and four logs were seized by officials from the Forest Protection Operations Centre. Several others escaped after one of them fired at an official’s vehicle.

Cheewapap Cheewatham, head of the centre’s Phayak Prai forest crime suppression taskforce, said footage from a live camera of the Central Network Anti-Poaching System alerted them to a group entering the Phuluang National Forest Reserve in the area of the Sakaeraj Environmental Research Centre.

Officials used five vehicles in an attempt to block six vehicles used by the alleged poachers as the suspects moved logs out of the forest on Highway 304 at 4.30am. One suspect fired at an official’s vehicle, allowing four vehicles to escape the trap. The officials stopped an Isuzu SUV and arrested three suspects and seized a Siamese Rosewood log inside, said Cheewapap. A suspect disappeared into the nearby forest from a Toyota Innova found abandoned nearby with a broken front left tyre.

The officials also seized three other logs that were about to be loaded into roadside vehicles. A suspect, Saming Sonkhoburi, said he and 10 others were hired in Khon Kaen by a Vietnamese man and a Thai man to transport the Siamese Rosewood logs.

Cheewapap said no officials were injured but an official vehicle was damaged by a bullet.

Three arrested, four Phayung logs seized in Nakhon Ratchasima crackdown

Long harsh prison sentences, without parole, upon the suspected offenders might send a general message.

Illegal logging in my area is the main income for many, most younger men have done time for it, a year for the loggers and drivers is normal.

Father inlaw, who was the area elected boss of 8 villages was sentenced to 5 years, he's on his 4th appeal at the moment.

Just too much money involved and the big guys never get caught, but the locals see a year in prison as worth the time for the return.
If you live in an old wooden hut eating sticky rice and bugs, prison is not that bad.

Originally Posted by jamescollister

Illegal logging in my area is the main income for many, most younger men have done time for it, a year for the loggers and drivers is normal.

Father inlaw, who was the area elected boss of 8 villages was sentenced to 5 years, he's on his 4th appeal at the moment.

Just too much money involved and the big guys never get caught, but the locals see a year in prison as worth the time for the return.
If you live in an old wooden hut eating sticky rice and bugs, prison is not that bad.

That's why it's worth the risk for these jokers to continue - minimum prison stays [1-5 years].

If such criminal acts were deemed important, they might serve up to 25-30 years without the appeal/parole bs.

Obviously it isn't, as clandestine forces are involved - officialdom, influential mafias, elites, etc.