"Thai trafficking scandal targets officials" by Thanyarat Doksone Associated Press May 09, 2015
BANGKOK — Thailand’s police chief announced the arrest of a powerful provincial mayor Friday and said 50 police officers are being investigated in a widening human trafficking scandal spanning four Asian countries.
At an urgently called meeting of senior police from around Thailand, police chief General Somyot Poompanmoung delivered the strongest public admission yet of police involvement in trafficking syndicates that use Thailand as a regional transit hub.
Human rights groups have long accused Thai authorities of collusion in the trafficking industry, but police routinely denied the claims.
“If you are still neglecting, or involved with, or supporting, or benefiting from human-trafficking networks — your heads will roll,” Somyot told the meeting at Bangkok’s national police headquarters.
Last Friday, police unearthed two dozen bodies from shallow graves in the mountains of southern Thailand, a grim discovery that has since exposed a network of jungle camps run by traffickers who allegedly held migrants captive while they extorted ransoms from their families.
Wein, Wein, Wein.
A total of 33 bodies, believed to be migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh, have now been exhumed.
Authorities say they have known for years that the area on the Thai-Malaysia border was used to smuggle Rohingya Muslims, a persecuted minority in Myanmar, as well as Bangladeshis and other migrants, to countries including Malaysia, which is mostly Muslim.
Yeah, that gets brought up by the pre$$ when Myanmar steps out of line; otherwise....
Fearing the recent crackdown, trafficking gangs appear to be abandoning migrants in southern Thailand. Since Thursday, police patrolling the Khao Kaew mountain in Padang Besar found 96 migrants, all frail and hungry, who claimed to be Rohingyas and Bangladeshis, police Colonel Palahon Gadekaew said.
Just banging around the mountains, 'eh?
A swift crackdown has included the arrests of eight people — mostly local officials and police — for suspected involvement in the syndicates. Among them was the prominent local mayor of Padang Besar, the subdistrict of southern Songkla province where most of the bodies were exhumed.
We have seen the same thing in England as well the U.S., and it indicates the existence of murderous and elite pedophile rings as well as prostitution rackets.
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They found mass graves in Thailand last week and tied them to Indonesia and Myanmar, then found more this week:
"Thais find 2 more trafficking camps" by Thanyarat Doksone Associated Press May 06, 2015
PADANG BESAR, Thailand — Police on Tuesday found two more camps believed to have held human trafficking victims — one recently abandoned and the other containing a buried skeleton — days after the grim discovery of 26 bodies at a separate location.
‘‘We will keep searching, because this means the traffickers are still on the run and taking people with them,’’ said Major General Amphon Buarubporn, commander of police for Songkla province, who joined dozens of officers in a trek up Khao Kaew mountain, followed by reporters. Police dismantled the camp’s eight huts and shelters made of freshly cut wood; a cellphone charger and clothing were signs of a recent evacuation.
Tuesday’s discovery was part of a mission to find survivors — or bodies — that activists say are hidden in the mountains, five days after authorities dug up the 26 corpses along the Thai-Malaysian border. The camps are believed to have been used by a transnational network that smuggled ethnic Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and migrants from Bangladesh and then abused them and held them captive until their families could pay ransoms.
Separately, in Phang Nga province, a skeleton in a mangrove forest was believed to be the remains of an ethnic Rohingya woman, said Governor Prayoon Rattanasenee, who was led to the location by a Rohingya who said there were more camps in the area. The coastal province is one of several known entry points used to smuggle Rohingya, who often flee Myanmar in overcrowded boats, into Thailand.
Of course, such things call up a certain trademarked event being celebrated all over TV this week.
The discoveries have shamed Thailand, which is already under pressure from the United States and the European Union to crack down on human trafficking.
My analysis is proven correct.
You stay in line and this stuff won't come out in the propaganda pre$$, 'kay?
In June, the United States downgraded Thailand and Malaysia to its lowest category in an annual assessment of how governments handle trafficking. Thailand promised action but its reputation suffered more following recent revelations that some Thai fishing vessels kept men from Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos on board as forced labor or slaves.
Thai authorities say they are investigating the complicity of police and local officials.
Reminds me of Chaim Rumkowski.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha gave orders for provincial officials ‘‘to scan every inch of their areas’’ for more detention camps or trafficking victims.
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Thailand isn't very well liked right now.
NDUs:
Three men arrested, charged with sex trafficking
2 sentenced to prison for roles in sex-trafficking case
