Tachileik authorities arrested two men on Sunday after they were caught attempting to transport a dead tiger in their car.
The culprits, Saing Nwe, 57, and Nyein Chan, 28, were travelling by car from Tachileik to Kyaingtong. When police stopped to inspect their Probox at the Mae Yan checkpoint, they discovered a dead male tiger measuring approximately 8 feet and 8 inches long in the vehicle’s backseat.
“There are no tigers in this region, so when we interrogated them as to where they got the tiger, they confessed that they had bought it from two people in Thailand. They were going to sell it at the Mong La wildlife market,” Deputy Director Soe Myint Thein of the Department of Forestry’s Kyaing Tong office told The Voice.
Last June, government officials announced that they were planning on shutting down the infamous market where endangered species and products are openly sold. However, authorities have faced difficulties going through with the plans, largely due to the fact that Mong La, located on the Chinese border in eastern Shan State, is under the de facto control of the National Democratic Alliance Army.
Both Saing Nwe and Nyein Chan are being charged under Section 37(a) of the Protection of Wildlife and Protected Areas Law.
