More than 4,500 baby turtles are safe and being evaluated by wildlife personnel while the man who packed them into a van has confessed to smuggling them from Myanmar, police said today.
The tiny turtles are being cared for at the Phitsanulok Inland Fisheries Research and Development center, which would not say today how many had died en route but promised a final turtle tally once they were counted.
Further west, the chief of Mae Sot district police said today that Sanchai Tongkabura, 44, had owned up to crossing the border with the 4,546 turtles stuffed into four boxes hidden among luggage.
Sanchai was stopped Tuesday at a police highway checkpoint in Tak province with several passengers from Myanmar aboard.
“Many of the turtles were very weak, for they had been tightly packed together for a long time,” Mae Sot police chief Sookseum Pankeaow told Coconuts Bangkok on Thursday afternoon. Some were close to death.”
Sookseum said Sanchai confessed to obtaining the reptiles in Myanmar and being on his way to Bangkok. He said he was unsure what the smuggler’s plans were once he got to the capital, but anyone who’s wandered too deep into the Chatuchak Weekend Market to its “pet” section can probably guess.
Three turtle species were discovered. The vast majority were red-eared terrapins, considered one of the world’s most popular pet turtle species. It also poses economic and ecological risks as an invasive species.
Sanchai faces several charges under wildlife and fisheries laws. Police also found 35 live snakehead murrel fish inside his van.
Whether it’s for merit making, pet sales or consumption, the illegal turtle trade has been thriving in Thailand. A December report from the Wildlife Justice Commission said a two-year investigation identified 200 potential suspects and eight criminal turtle smuggling operations across South Asia and Southeast Asia, including in Thailand.
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