Wildlife smuggling gang busted in Thailand

Three wildlife smugglers have been captured by police with tiger carcasses and pangolins in Thailand's northeastern province of Udonthani, local press reported Sunday.

The three suspects were nabbed on Saturday at one of the province's bypass intersection, local police was quoted by The Nation newspaper as saying.

On their two pick-up trucks, police found three tiger carcasses wrapped up in plastic sheets and kept in large iceboxes. Some 150 pangolins were also discovered in the flatbeds of the pickups.

All the three have been charged with conspiring to possess endangered wild animals.

The suspects confessed that they were hired by somebody from the southern Narathiwat province to transport the animals to Lao clients in Nongkhai. They said they were paid 15,000 baht (357 US dollars) each to conduct the trip.

Source: Xinhua