Thai police make rare arrest of politician accused of migrant smuggling in fishing industry

Thai police have made the rare arrest of a local politician – along with six others – on suspicion of smuggling Burmese migrants on fishing trawlers and into debt bondage.

Tuesday’s arrests by the Federal Special Investigations Department come as the kingdom tries to clean up complex supply chains in its multibillion-dollar seafood industry.

Thailand’s fishing industry was rocked in 2016 when a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press investigation uncovered slavery and abuse of migrant labor, criticizing its fruit sector for sea, the seventh in the world, supplying tuna, shrimp and pet food to global supermarkets.

The revelations prompted the European Union to threaten a costly ban on imports of fish from the country and a consumer awareness campaign that has tarnished the image of seafood made in Thailand.

Thai authorities have worked to clean up an industry marked by obscure brokers, middlemen and influential local figures who dominate its ports and profit from trafficked, unpaid or indebted labor. The EU lifted its threat in 2019.

Dawn raids on Tuesday by armed police in the port of Si Chon in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat in the Gulf of Thailand saw seven people arrested – including a deputy mayor of one of the province’s municipalities and a boat captain.

The detainees are accused of trafficking five Burmese nationals after allegedly trapping the workers in debt bondage by tricking them into a boat with an upfront payment which was then reframed as a loan that had to be repaid, police said.

“After recovering the first catch, they snatched the crew,” said Deputy Commissioner General of the Thai Police Force, Lt. Gen. Jaruwat Waisaya. “The objective was to plunge workers into a cycle of debt where they must continue to work to repay it,” he added, without revealing the names of the suspects.

Images shared with VOA show one of the arrested men sitting on his bed next to several handguns, a sign of dangers in and around Thai ports where a lot of money can be made with a labor force. cheap work.

“Don’t think that we don’t know what you are doing … we will continue to bring the criminals to justice so that Thailand can be freed from human trafficking and this scourge of labor exploitation,” Jaruwat warned. .

The arrest of a local official, who is believed to have been instrumental in the labor abuse at the port for several years, was a wake-up call to those whose positions ensure them impunity, told VOA a high ranking police source.

“We wanted to make an example of a case where a local politician is involved in the crime because the punishment will be more severe than for an ordinary person,” said the source, who asked not to be identified.

If convicted, the politician faces 60 years in prison, three times the normal maximum sentence.

His arrest sheds a rare light on the pyramid of power that rules Thailand’s notoriously shady ports, where activists claim multiple layers of bribes are paid by dubious boat operators to hide the identities of members of the crew, volume of catches and actual ownership of vessels. Normally, only low level brokers or boat captains are arrested in cases of abuse and human trafficking.

“It’s a chicken and egg situation,” added the police source. “Are these guys business people before they become politicians or is it really the other way around?

Catch Me If You Can

Nakon Si Thammarat, with 225 kilometers of coastline, reported 115,274 tonnes of marine catches in 2019, according to data from the Thai Ministry of Fisheries.

The Southeast Asian country has introduced a series of measures to control an industry made up mostly of migrants from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos – all countries sharing porous borders with the kingdom.

These measures include the registration of workers, computer monitoring of boats and their catches and spot checks of captains and crew.

Thailand’s largest seafood conglomerate is Thai Union, which markets Chicken of the Sea brand tuna. It has sought to eradicate the exploitation of its vast chain, in part by sourcing labor directly from Myanmar.

This has been applauded by labor rights groups.

“Gaps remain, but in our experience of working with Thai government partners in the criminal justice system, the government is making efforts to improve the system and extend more effective protection to victims,” ​​he said. said Andrew Wasuwongse of International Justice Mission, an NGO whose mission is to end slavery in the seafood industry. It was information from his group that led to Tuesday’s arrests.

Thailand’s fishing boat lobby says the measures crush their profits and place the financial burden of strict labor and environmental standards on the link in a global fisheries supply chain with the lowest profit margin – rather than on conglomerates, supermarkets and consumers.

In a cat-and-mouse game that takes place over vast expanses of the open sea, unscrupulous boat operators sink deeper into the Indian Ocean as fish stocks run out in Thai seas. These operators seek to evade detection by swapping their flags and crews, repainting ships and staying at sea for months.

“Today’s arrest demonstrates that the power of law can be used to protect migrant workers in Thailand, who are among the most vulnerable and powerless,” Wasuwongse said. “All the more so when their employer is a powerful businessman with an official position in local government. ”