YALA: The Thai authorities today seized 21 radiated tortoises worth more than 650,000 baht (RM83,000), believed to be smuggled in from Malaysia.
Head of the 4th Border Control Army at Betong District, Capt Phanupong Chanawanno said a local taxi driver, 62, was arrested for attempting to smuggle the tortoises listed as a critically endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
He said the military and Customs officers who checked the taxi at the Betong Customs Immigration, and Quarantine (CIQ) Complex, had found four shoe boxes in the bonnet which contained the reptiles.
“Based on the suspect’s statement, he had picked up the four shoeboxes at a petrol station in Keroh — about 2km from the Betong CIQ — to be transported to Yala. The suspect did not know it was illegal to bring them,“ he told reporters here, today. — Bernama
