BANGKOK: A village headman in Tambon Hin Kaew in Chumphon’s Tha Sae district was arrested for alleged human trafficking after 74 people from Myanmar were smuggled into Thailand, robbed of valuables, and abandoned in a forest in Chumphon’s Muang district earlier this month.
It is alleged that while the migrants were hidden in a camp, Thai human traffickers also raped three Myanmar women aged 18 to 20.
Village headman Prasert Sangkhom, 52, was among four people whom the Chumphon provincial court issued arrest warrants for on Thursday.
Police are hunting for three other suspects who are believed to have fled to a village on the Myanmar side of the border with accomplices there and to an island in the Andaman Sea.
In related news, an Interior Ministry taskforce raided a karaoke bar in Tambon Sanam Chai in Suphan Buri’s Muang district early yesterday and rounded up 10 Myanmar women aged 20 to 30 and four Myanmar girls under 18.
Police arrested bar owner Chumpol Chan-ngamdee, 53, for opening the establishment without permission, running a prostitution ring and human trafficking.
The pre-dawn raid stemmed from a tip-off from the Counter Human Trafficking Unit, a non-governmental group, about Myanmar women being forced into prostitution. — The Sunday Nation / Asia News Network
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