Thailand: Payung logs worth B40m seized

Bangkok Post, 8 Oct 13;

Police seized 635 logs of Siamese rosewood, or payung, worth more than 40 million baht in Sadao district of Songkhla province in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Pol Lt-Col Chavalit Kangkarat, commander of Border Patrol Police Company 437, said.

A 20-strong team of border patrol police set up a checkpoint on Kanchanavanich road in Sadao municipality on Monday night, after receiving a tip there would be an attempt to smuggle a huge amount of protected Siamese rosewood timber through the border city to Malaysia.

About 1am on Tuesday, police spotted a heavy truck with licence plate No 75-0975, Songkhla, and signalled the driver to stop for a search. They found the payung logs hidden under a covering of smoked rubber sheets.

The truck’s driver, Somchai Nual-aiad, 43, a resident of Moo 5 in tambon Pangla of Sadao district, was arrested on charges of smuggling the protected wood.

Mr Somchai told police he was paid 500 baht to deliver the cut logs to a man at Ban Dan Nok, near the Thai-Malaysian border in Sadao district.