By CS Thana
BANGKOK
More than 200 witnesses in a Thai police investigation into the trafficking of migrants have been given protective custody, according to an official Wednesday.
Aek Angsananont, deputy police chief, told Anadolu Agency the 236 witnesses have been placed under police protection after receiving death threats and intimidating visits by members of a network involved in trafficking Rohingya Muslims and other migrants.
Their location will remain undisclosed until formal charges are brought against the suspects and the case goes to trial, he said over the phone.
According to Aek, 56 people have been arrested as of Wednesday in the anti-trafficking campaign Thailand launched early last month.
Police continue to pursue another 21 suspects who have been evading arrest.
Since the campaign began May 1 following the discovery of dozens of bodies at trafficking camps near the southern border with Malaysia, Thai officials have seized assets worth over 200 million baht (over $5.9 million) belonging to suspected human traffickers.
The Anti Money Laundering Office has said that among the seized assets is a 4 million baht bank account owned by Lt. Gen. Manas Kongpaen -- the highest-ranking person arrested so far.
Kongpaen, a senior adviser to the Royal Thai Army who once oversaw human trafficking investigations in Thailand's south, has been suspended without pay while officials investigate his alleged role in the trafficking of migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.
He has denied all charges, and asked the public to wait for "the facts" before they judge him.
Thai officials have been implicated by rights groups as colluding with human smugglers who have been preying on migrants -- many of whom are Rohingya fleeing persecution described by some human rights groups as "state sponsored" in Myanmar.
Those arrested under human trafficking charges include police officers, local officials and a former president of Satun provincial administration organization, Pajjuban Angchotiphan, considered "a human-trafficking kingpin."
Satun is on Thailand’s forested border with Malaysia, where many of the smugglers' detention camps have been found.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya have left Myanmar attempting to reach Muslim majority Malaysia and Indonesia on crammed boats.
The journey has exposed them to human traffickers who have held them at temporary camps within Thailand to demand ransoms from their families back home.
If no ransom is paid, the refugees are often beaten and/or killed.
The Thai junta’s crackdown on trafficking networks and routes has sparked an international crisis as thousands of refugees became stranded in boats, unable to land in the country.
Many of the estimated 7,000 Rohingya Muslims and Bangladeshis on the boats have been taken in -- albeit temporarily -- by Indonesia and Malaysia, but Thailand has not offered to house the migrants, its navy instead turning the vessels back to sea after providing them with food and water.
