Thailand cracks down on smuggling

Thailand cracks down on smuggling

BANGKOK (Reuter): Thai customs officers have arrested the captain of a fishing trawler and seized more than 60,000 liters of diesel in a crackdown on fuel smuggling, officials said yesterday.

The trawler, whose storage space had been converted into fuel tanks, was stopped and boarded 12 nautical miles off Songkhla in southern Thailand late on Sunday, the officials told reporters.

Almost 300,000 liters of smuggled diesel have been seized in the past two months, in a gathering campaign to stamp out illegal fuel trading in the Gulf of Thailand and Andaman Sea that costs the government millions of dollars in unrealized taxes.

Last week marine police on the holiday island of Phuket arrested 12 people and seized 200,000 liters of diesel from a fishing trawler they suspected of smuggling fuel from a Singapore depot, a marine police source said.