Thai kingpin jailed for Rohingya trafficking

BANGKOK: A Thai man accused of masterminding the smuggling and trafficking of Rohingya migrants fleeing Myanmar has been jailed for 35 years, a court said on Thursday.

Southern Thailand has long been known as a nexus for lucrative smuggling networks through which persecuted Rohingya Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, and Bangladeshi economic migrants, pass on their way to Malaysia.

For years Thailand turned a blind eye to -- and was even complicit in -- the well-worn trafficking trade in the deep south.

Last year, Thailand’s junta launched a belated crackdown, a move that led smugglers to abandoned hundreds of victims on boats and in squalid jungle camps, but also brought much of the trade to a halt.

On Wednesday Sunand Saengthong, an alleged trafficking kingpin, was jailed for overseeing smuggling networks.

"Overall he was sentenced to 35 years and a fine of 660,000 baht," a spokesman at Pak Phanang provincial court told AFP.

Two other accomplices were sentenced to one year and six months in jail respectively.

Police arrested Sunand after a raid in January last year that uncovered 97 Rohingya, the court said in a statement.

"Witness testimonies in court found that money from the human trafficking gang was transferred to Sunand’s bank account," the statement said, adding that he was "a mastermind of Rohingya trafficking" in the south.  For years they have fled their homeland by sea, looking for work in Muslim-majority Malaysia.