Thai Authorities Round Up Cambodian Beggars

BANGKOK, April 23 (TNA) - Thai immigration police and soldiers rounded up 26 Cambodian beggars at the Rong Klua market in the country's eastern Sa Kaeo province Monday. The Cambodian people comprise a disabled man, three women, nine boys and 13 girls, all were then brought to a border checkpoint in Sa Kaeo's Aranyaprathet district for their profile records. Police Colonel Sangkhom Tadso, chief of Sa Kaeo's immigration police, said that the arrest was aimed at protecting Cambodian people and children from being forced to begging in Bangkok and the renowned eastern resort Pattaya city and at maintaining a good tourist atmosphere at the Rong Klua market, where young Cambodian beggars were annoying tourists and the visiting travellers might mistake the young Cambodians for Thai children. In Thailand’s southern resort Phuket province, police and customs authorities, meanwhile, held a press conference to report the arrest of 12 Taiwanese and Indonesian sailors allegedly for smuggling 47,000 liters of diesel worth about 1.4 million baht aboard two Taiwanese fishing boats into Thailand. The foreign suspects were arrested about two nautical miles off Taphao Yai island in the Wichit locality of Muang Phuket district and were charged with smuggling the oil into the country in violation of the Customs Act. The Thai authorities brought the foreign sailors and their boats to Phuket's customs office for further prosecution. (TNA)