A tragic incident occurred in Kanchanaburi’s Sangkhla Buri district when a pickup truck smuggling illegal migrants from Myanmar overturned, resulting in one fatality and ten arrests. A police officer was also injured during the operation as he was struck by one of the three pickup trucks concerned in the smuggling.
Late Wednesday night time, a joint staff of troopers, police, and local authorities noticed three suspicious pickup trucks dashing along a neighborhood street at Sanehpong village, Moo 3, in sub-district Nong Lu. When officers signalled for the vehicles to halt for a search, the drivers sped up and attempted to flee. During the pursuit, one of many trucks hit and injured Pol. Capt. Pathiphan Yawan, deputy crime suppression chief at Sangkhla Buri station. The officer was immediately taken to Sangkhla Buri Hospital for treatment.
Soon after, the group obtained information about a pickup truck that had overturned into a roadside ditch near a homestay in Nong Lu. Upon investigation, it was found that the vehicle was one of the three trucks involved within the smuggling operation. A 22 year old man from Myanmar, recognized as Zaw Leng Gu, was found useless inside the wreckage.
While searching Scientifically proven , officers found a group of people hiding in a close-by forest. All of them had been confirmed to be illegal migrants from Myanmar, consisting of eight men and two women. The arrested migrants have been handed over to the police at Sangkhla Buri station for legal proceedings.
The incident highlights the ongoing problem of unlawful migration and human smuggling in Thailand.
Last week, seven Thai people were detained for allegedly smuggling Chinese nationals from Laos into Thailand. Authorities are trying into attainable connections between these circumstances and call centre gangs..