Thai police have arrested a suspected kingpin of wildlife trafficking who allegedly fuelled much of Asia’s illegal trade for over a decade.
Police say Boonchai Bach, a 40-year-old Thai of Vietnamese descent, was arrested in a north-eastern border province in connection with the smuggling of 14 rhino horns worth more than $1m (£810,000) from Africa into Thailand last month, in a case that also implicated a Thai official and a Chinese national.
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He denies the charges against him.
Boonchai allegedly ran a large trafficking network on the Thai-Laos border that spread into Vietnam.
According to the anti-trafficking group Freeland, he and his family played a key role in a syndicate that smuggled poached items including ivory, rhino horn, pangolins, tigers, lions and other rare and endangered species.
Under the wildlife law, he could face up to four years in prison and a 40,000 baht (£1,000) fine, but authorities said they are also considering money-laundering and customs violation charges that carry up to 10 years in prison.
“One of the largest known wildlife traffickers in a really big syndicate has been arrested,” said Matthew Pritchett, Freeland’s director of communications. “In a nutshell, I can’t think of anything in the past five years that has been this significant.”
