TH - Mischievous monkey meddlers meet their match

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Mischievous monkey meddlers meet their match

 

SRISAKET: A man was arrested in the early hours of February 21 for

kidnapping monkeys from a popular tourist spot in Rasi Salai District.

Police believe the monkeys were to be smuggled to Korea, to be eaten for

perceived health-giving benefits. At 3:30 am, Pol Lt Col Wisanu Reuangsri,

an investigating officer at Rasi Salai District Police Station, received a

phone call from Rian Phobutr, a resident of Village 5 in Tambon Wan Kham. K.

Rian, 58, said that a gang was catching monkeys at the nearby Wan Village

Monkey Forest, a popular tourist attraction with a thousand-strong

population of primates.

 

Col Wisanu rushed to the scene, where he found three people setting traps

for the monkeys. Also found was a cage containing three monkeys that the

gang had already caught. Police arrested one of the gang but the other two

managed to escape into the forest. Police collected as evidence two monkey

cages, 20 nets, a selection of various traps, hunting equipment, nuts and

some bananas, which were used as bait. Police also seized a Toyota sedan

belonging to the gang. Arrested gang member Arun Kertphetch was taken to the

police station for interrogation. Arun, 38, claimed that he was just the

driver and had nothing to do with the monkey poaching. The other two men had

paid him 2,000 baht to drive to the forest and he assumed they were just

going there to relax, he claimed. If he had known what they were up to, he

would never have agreed to take them, he said. The only reason he had been

caught was because he didn't want to run away with the others and abandon

his car, he added.

 

Arun said that when they got to the forest, he overheard the other two men

saying that they would catch monkeys and export them to Korea, where they

fetched three to five thousand baht. Some Koreans believe that monkey flesh,

brain tissue in particular, is a strong tonic. Police, however, found Arun's

story a little hard to swallow given that the gang had a plethora of

professional monkey-catching equipment that Arun must have noticed as they

were loading it into the car. Police charged him with hunting a protected

species without permission and being in possession of a protected species

without permission. Police said they would hunt for the other two members of

the gang and expand the investigation to bust the entire monkey-to-Korea

export ring.

 

Source: Kom Chad Luek , Phuket Gazette

 

 

Edwin Wiek and Founder

Wildlife Friends Foundation (Thailand)

www.wfft.org <http://www.wfft.org/>