In Brief
– Officers arrested three people on October 8th under Criminal Court warrants for trading and possessing protected wildlife carcasses without permission.
– Police said the suspects jointly ran the Facebook page “Samruay Suea Tawan-ok,” or Lucky Eastern Tiger, and shipped tiger skins from Bangkok to Nakhon Phanom.
– The case grew out of a May 25th arrest in which more than 300 tiger skins, including several tiger-face skins, were seized.
– All three confessed, police said. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took part in the operation.
In Full
The Bangkok Central Investigation Bureau with assistance from the US Fish and Wildlife Service arrested three people on Thursday over an online page alleged to have sold tiger skins and other protected wildlife parts, following a case in which more than 300 tiger skins were seized in May.
Pol. Maj. Gen. Anek Taosuphap, commander of the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division, ordered the arrests. Pol. Col. Permwut Pratumrat, superintendent of Subdivision 1, and Pol. Col. Thanatchon Kengkhasikit, superintendent of Subdivision 3, led the teams with officers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The suspects are Kittipong, 31, Charattikan, 31, and Apiwat, 27. Criminal Court warrants charged them with jointly trading and possessing protected wildlife carcasses without permission. Kittipong and Charattikan were arrested at a house in Soi Suan Siam 16, in the Khan Yao subdistrict. Apiwat was arrested at a house in Soi Khu Bon 27, Yaek 37, in the Tha Raeng subdistrict.
Investigators said the case began on May 25th, when Subdivision 1 officers arrested a woman identified as Kulkanya with more than 300 tiger skins, including several tiger-face skins. The follow-up inquiry found that the skins had been ordered for sale on the Facebook page “Samruay Suea Tawan-ok,” which the three suspects allegedly ran together. Police said the group packed and shipped the goods from Bangkok to Nakhon Phanom. Officers gathered evidence and obtained the warrants before making the arrests.
All three confessed to the charges during questioning, police said. They were handed to investigators at Subdivision 3 for prosecution.
Trading or possessing protected wildlife, or parts of it, without permission is an offence under Thailand’s wildlife conservation law. Tiger parts remain a priority for both Thai officers and foreign wildlife agencies because skins, bones and teeth still move through online listings and cross-border parcel routes. The same CIB division worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last month on a separate live-animal case, arresting a Cambodian man and a Thai manover a hornbill and a gibbon allegedly bought in Thailand for sale abroad.
Police did not say whether further suppliers in the tiger-skin chain are still being sought.
Photo credit CIB.