Busts show dog-smuggling trade booming

On Friday night, police arrested a Thai man driving a six-wheel truck with some 500 dogs that was due to meet up with a boat moored on the Mekong River in Nakhon Panom's Ban Phaeng district.

Following a report that smugglers were transporting dogs through their jurisdiction, Nakhon Phanom police set up a checkpoint and intercepted the truck, which was carrying the dogs in 60 cages. The truck driver, Salut Khotkok, 42, said he was hired to drive the truck from Sakhon Nakhon's Tha Rae area to the Ban Phaeng border pier.

Another 500 or so dogs in 58 cages were discovered yesterday at 5am in a wooded area of Tambon Ban Euang in Nakhon Phanom's Sri Songkhram district. The animals were believed to have been abandoned by members of the same gang involved in Friday's incident after they learned that their partners had been arrested.

This retrieval of some 1,000 dogs puts a further burden on the Nakhon Phanom animal quarantine centre, which had 1,530 dogs under its care to begin with.

In related news, Sakhon Nakhon governor Jarin Jakkapak yesterday instructed police and provincial livestock chief Pramote Srithon to move some of the provincial animal quarantine centre's 3,000 dogs, most of which were recently seized from smugglers in Tha Rae, to the Buri Ram animal quarantine centre. The move was ordered to reduce the crowded conditions at the Sakhon Nakhon centre, where some of the dogs had fallen ill.

The dogs are being kept as evidence in legal proceedings against Tha Rae smugglers. A verdict in the case is due to be read on January 17.

Info source : The Nation