Police arrested illegal border crossers in Mae Sot district of Tak province and human traffickers in southern provinces as they have intensified operations to crack down on human trafficking.
Pol Lt Gen Surachate Hakparn, an assistant national police chief supervising anti-human trafficking operations, visited Mae Sot district when police and soldiers arrested 4 illegal Myanmar migrants on the bank of the Moei River.
He said that anti-human trafficking police arrested 19 human-trafficking suspects in southern border provinces today.
Police found that each illegal migrant had to pay at least 100,000 baht to traffickers for a trip from Mae Sot district through southern Thailand to Malaysia, Pol Lt Gen Surachate said.
He said he was concerned that many illegal migrants had been lured because they did not have an expected job. Female migrants were forced to be sex workers and men were used as slaves in the fishing industry. Police already identified Thai and foreign human traffickers and were hunting for them, Pol Lt Gen Surachate said. (TNA)