Police find tiger carcasses in raid

Bangkok police said they found two dead tigers and a dead panther in a house raided in the Khan Nao Yao district. The Crime Suppression Division arrested two men in the Wednesday raid and charged them with violating the Wildlife Conservation and Protection Act, MCOT online news reported. One of the suspects, Cawinthorn Thongtin, told police the carcasses had been smuggled into Thailand from Malaysia through the Sadao checkpoint in the southern border province of Songkhla. He said he had been hired by a Vietnamese man to collect the carcasses from the checkpoint and bring them to the house for safekeeping while he waited for another man to pick them up and take them to the northeastern province of Nong Khai. The smugglers covered the carcasses with water bottles to avoid police suspicion at checkpoints, the report said. Cawinthorn said he was paid $254 for each trip and made about three trips a month. Police said each carcass was worth around $22,310.