Wildlife conservation officials rescued 41 macaque monkeys and arrested a man as he was attempting to smuggle the animals across the border into Laos on Tuesday.
Officials from the Protected Area Region 10 Office, based in the north-eastern province of Udon Thani, and police from the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division stopped a car in Nong Han district, suspicious that it may contain contraband.
The officials found 13 plastic containers filled with macaque monkeys. 41 of them were alive, but three were dead. The driver of the car, identified as “Boonchuay”, a native of Don Sawan district in Chaiyaphum province, was then taken into custody for questioning.
Sombat Supasorn, director of the Protected Area Region 10 Office, alleges that Boonchuay belongs to a wildlife trafficking gang, three members of which were arrested in Udon Thani in last July on the Friendship highway in possession of 50 macaques.
He said that the gang usually bought monkeys captured in Chon Buri, Lop Buri and Ratchaburi and then smuggled them into Laos, where each monkey, aged between 4 and 6 months, can fetch up to 5,000 baht. Older monkeys are sold according to their weight.
The monkeys will then be smuggled into a third country, believed to be China, to be used in laboratory tests, said Sombat, adding that their prices can reach 10,000 baht each by the time the animals reach their destination.
