SEOUL: Two South Korean men were arrested in the northeastern province of Nong Khai Saturday evening when police found 50 refurbished smartphones in their bags, which they declined to declare at the Mueang Nong Khai border checkpoint.
Chunsic Jeong, 40 and Jongpil Kim, 41, were arrested by Nong Khai immigraiton officers on charge of smuggling controlled goods without properly declaring them to customs officials.
The two were brought to an interrogation room of the Nong Khai Immigration office at 7:30pm. They were interrogated by Pol Maj Gen Chartchai Iamsaeng, commander of the Immigration Police Division 4 and Pol Col Pallop Suriyakul, commander of the Nong Khai Immigration Office.
Presented along the suspects in the interrogation room were 30 used Samsung Note 2 phones and 20 used iPhone 5 phones. The seized used smartphones with accessories were worth about Bt700,000.
The two were arrested on the Vangvieng-Udon Thani bus when it passed the border checkpoint at the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge.
When passengers on the bus were asked to get down the bus to pass through the immigration counters at the checkpoint, officials checked the bus and found two bags hidden under two seats. After the two South Koreans returned to their seats, police asked them to open the bags and found the smuggled phones.
The two told police that they are phone repairing technician and they bought the used phones from their friend who has a shop in Vientiane. They said they planned to deliver the phones to a customer in Malaysia.
They admitted that they declined to declare the phones for fear of being arrested. They were handed over to the Mueang Nong Khai police station for prosecution.
