{"id":385528,"date":"2025-11-17T16:02:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T16:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/385528\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T16:02:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T16:02:19","slug":"81-monkeys-and-meth-found-in-car-driven-by-suspected-wildlife-smugglers-rangers-in-thailand-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/385528\/","title":{"rendered":"81 monkeys and meth found in car driven by suspected wildlife smugglers, rangers in Thailand say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thai rangers have arrested two men suspected of being part of an international wildlife smuggling network, the military said Saturday after they were intercepted in a car carrying 81 macaques near the Cambodian border.<\/p>\n

Thailand is a major transit hub for wildlife smugglers, who often sell highly prized endangered creatures on the lucrative black market in China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

A patrol stopped the vehicle on Friday afternoon in Aranyaprathet district of Sa Kaeo province, where troops found the monkeys stuffed into blue net bags.<\/p>\n

“At 3:20 pm, authorities arrested the two suspects and inspected their vehicle,” the 12th Ranger Forces Regiment, which is responsible for the area, said in a statement on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The soldiers also seized methamphetamine pills and crystal meth, though no quantities were specified.<\/p>\n

\"monkeys-580510715-1172575148396547-1050361549492613370-n.jpg<\/p>\n

A patrol stopped the vehicle on Friday afternoon in Aranyaprathet district of Sa Kaeo province, where troops found the monkeys stuffed into blue net bags.<\/p>\n

Thailand 12th Ranger Forces Regiment<\/p>\n

During questioning, the men admitted they were involved in a cross-border trafficking ring moving macaques from Thailand into Cambodia, the military said in a Facebook post.<\/p>\n

Troops were working with police to pursue charges under wildlife-protection and narcotics laws.<\/p>\n

Last year, Thailand sent almost 1,000 highly endangered lemurs and tortoises back to their home in Madagascar, after both countries’ biggest operation against wildlife trafficking.<\/p>\n

In June, Indian customs officers seized nearly 100 creatures including lizards, sunbirds and tree-climbing possums, from a passenger arriving from Thailand<\/a>. Wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC, which battles the smuggling of wild animals, said at the time that more than 7,000 animals, dead and alive, had been seized along the Thailand-India air route in the last 3-and-a-half years.<\/p>\n

In May, Thai police arrested a man suspected of smuggling two baby orangutans into the kingdom. That operation was supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement. A 47-year-old was arrested at a Bangkok gas station as he prepared to hand over the animals to a buyer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife said<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n

Last year, Thai customs officials arrested six Indians for attempting to smuggle a red panda and 86 other animals out of the kingdom<\/a>, including snakes, parrots and monitor lizards.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thai rangers have arrested two men suspected of being part of an international wildlife smuggling network, the military…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":385529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9562,50,11843,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-385528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-endangered-species","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-thailand","11":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115565884713779728","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}