Thai drivers and other Myanmar citizens detained on their way to work in Malaysia.
PUBLISHED: 23 Nov 2024 at 16: 34
At a street station in the Sai Buri area of this southwestern state on Saturday, 29 illegal migrants from Myanmar were discovered crammed inside an enclosed box in a pickup truck’s bed.
The truck’s pilot, a Thai national, and the workers who were trying to find employment in Malaysia were also detained.
After learning that a car suspected of being used for people trafficking was traveling on Highway 42 between Pattani and Narathiwat, officers on Saturday chased the delivery with Bangkok license sheets.
Officers in the Sai Buri district’s Tambon Torbon contacted highway authorities to set up a checkpoint to catch the pickup driver after he accelerated.
The delivery truck was stopped for a research by highway policemanning the station. 21 people and 8 women were inside the box when they opened the door to the truck’s sleep.
Driver Muhammad Fitdao Binyainee, 27, a tribal of Phatthalung state, was arrested along with the workers.
The pilot claimed to be on his way to tambon Pukorta in the Narathiwat city of Waeng and that he had picked up the workers in Helmet Yai during questioning. He claimed that a Thai agent, who was merely Nobin from Yala, paid him 1,500 ringgit per head to move the migrants to the country’s southern border province.
The 29 Myanmar nationals claimed to have contacted a Malaysian work agent to assist them while they were there. They had been traveling illegally through Thailand for three days, and they were waiting for their final stop at Narathiwat’s borders.
The Thai drivers and all of Myanmar’s nationals were being held by the officers for legal actions.  ,
On Saturday night in the Sai Buri district of Pattani, bridge police confront the Thai drivers of a package pickup truck used to bring migrants. ( Photo: Abdullah Benjakat )