Police expand hunt for alleged kingpin of a Thai people-smuggling network
Thai authorities believe Pajjuban Aungkachotephan, a one-time senior provincial official known locally as Ko Tong, has fled the kingdom.
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 13 May, 2015, 3:57pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 13 May, 2015, 4:16pm
Agence France-Presse in Bangkok
Security forces inspect an abandoned migrant camp in Thailand's southern Songkhla province. Photo: Reuters
A manhunt intensified on Wednesday for the alleged kingpin of a Thai people smuggling network, police said, as detectives probe whether a private island near the Malaysia sea border was a key link in a trafficking chain spanning several countries.
Thai police believe Pajjuban Aungkachotephan, a one-time senior provincial official known locally as Ko Tong, has fled the kingdom since a warrant for his arrest was issued on Saturday.
The probe is examining whether Ko Tong used the small island near the Malaysian sea border as a base to mastermind a trafficking network which has unravelled since May 1 when dozens of migrants’ graves were found on the nearby Thai mainland.
A police crackdown following the grim discovery appears to have forced smuggling gangs to flee, abandoning hundreds of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh in a network of Thai jungle camps near the Malaysia border.
Around 2,000 more have been found on boats in Malaysian and Indonesian waters or have swum to shore in recent days, with fears that thousands of others remain at sea without food and water.
“Ko Tong is a mastermind of the trafficking gang in Satun province [bordering Malaysia], but I can’t disclose all of the details,” Major General Paveen Pongsirin, a deputy regional commander in the Thai south said.
“He has a lot of assets – tens of millions of baht in assets have been seized. He is a very prominent figure,” he said.
Thai policeman and immigration officials check Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, days after they were rescued along with ethnic Rohingya refugees following the human trafficking crackdown. Photo: EPA
Rights groups and observers have long accused Thai officials, including the police and military, of turning a blind eye to human trafficking – and even being complicit in the grim trade.
Police have arrested 18 people over the scandal, including senior local officials, with warrants out for 32 more.
However no law enforcement or military figures have been arrested yet.
Instead more than 50 police officers, including senior officials, have been ”transferred” from their posts for failing to act against the trade.
Thailand’s police chief on Tuesday said Ko Tong had fled to a “neighbouring country” – while local media reports said he was believed to be on the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi.
The kingdom’s top cop is meeting his Malaysian counterpart in Phuket later Wednesday.
Ko Tong – Ko means ’Big Brother’ – owned a large chunk of land on Rat Yai, a small island just off the coast of Satun, which borders Malaysia, according to the province’s governor.
“He used to be chairman of Satun Provincial Administration but recently lost elections,” Dejrath Simsiri said.
“He is an ’influential person’,” he said, adding he is also known to have ties to local officials in nearby Padang Besar – the district where the migrant graves were found in a remote hillside.
Locals in Satun said the Rat Yai was renowned for being off limits.
“If any boats came near the island speedboats would come and tell them to leave,” a local resident said, requesting anonymity.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have braved the dangerous sea crossing to southern Thailand from Myanmar in recent years, with many headed for Malaysia and beyond.
