Reuters, Thailand :
Thai police have arrested a man they believe is the key figure behind a brutal human trafficking network that ran a jungle camp where dozens of bodies have been found.
Soe Naing, widely known as Anwar, was detained last Tuesday as authorities closed in on a camp near the Thai-Malaysia border where as many as 400 trafficked migrants, mainly Rohingya and
Bangladeshis, were imprisoned for ransom, Police Colonel Anuchon Chamat, deputy commander of police in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, told Reuters. He was charged with fraud related to his failure to release a trafficked Rohingya after receiving a ransom payment.
His arrest, and the uncovering of the camp containing 26 bodies on Friday, is the first major bust of a trade in humans that activists and some Thai officials say has been allowed to flourish for years amid indifference and, sometimes, complicity by Thai authorities.
Thai police have arrested a man they believe is the key figure behind a brutal human trafficking network that ran a jungle camp where dozens of bodies have been found.
Soe Naing, widely known as Anwar, was detained last Tuesday as authorities closed in on a camp near the Thai-Malaysia border where as many as 400 trafficked migrants, mainly Rohingya and
Bangladeshis, were imprisoned for ransom, Police Colonel Anuchon Chamat, deputy commander of police in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, told Reuters. He was charged with fraud related to his failure to release a trafficked Rohingya after receiving a ransom payment.
His arrest, and the uncovering of the camp containing 26 bodies on Friday, is the first major bust of a trade in humans that activists and some Thai officials say has been allowed to flourish for years amid indifference and, sometimes, complicity by Thai authorities.
