Thai human trafficker jailed for trading Rohingya refugees

A Thai national accused of masterminding and running a huge trafficking business of Rohingya migrants fleeing from Myanmar, has been jailed for 35 years. The news comes as a great surprise as previously, Thai government has turned a blind eye towards all such activities.

Thailand is known as a safe place for running such smuggling networks but in recent months, Thailand’s junta has launched a crackdown against smugglers to clean the country’s image.

According to the details of the case provided, the accused, identified as Sunand Saengthong, was known as a trafficking kingpin in Thailand and he has been accused of running a smuggling network which would capture the fleeing Rohingya migrants in Thailand, while they were on their way to Malaysia to look for a better life.

Rohingya Muslims have been persecuted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar for years, and in order to escape the brutalities and look for a better life, most of these people escape to Malaysia via Thailand. However, Saengthong’s network would capture these escaped refugees and beat and rape them till the time their relatives would give them ransom for their release. The unclaimed would mostly be sold off to carry out illegal businesses.

On Wednesday the court handed down Saengthong his sentence-he has to serve 35 years in prison for his crimes and also pay a fine of $19,000.

Saengthong was arrested by the police after a raid in January in which 97 Rohingya migrants were also discovered.

“Witness testimonies in court found that money from the human trafficking gang was transferred to Sunand´s bank account,” the statement said, adding that he was “a mastermind of Rohingya trafficking” in the south.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=53903

Posted by fatimaarshad on Sep 1 2016. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.