Army troops and Interior Ministry officials arrested three men in Si Sa Ket’s Phu Sing district early Monday and seized 65 pieces of protected Siamese rosewood from them.
Acting on tip-offs, they stopped a pickup truck on a road in Ban Phanom Chai in Phu Sing’s Tambon Huay Ta Mon at 12.45am.
The officials found 65 pieces or about 1.35 cubic metres of the wood on the pickup, as well as three methamphetamine pills and 0.4 grams of crystal meth inside the vehicle.
They also seized a motorcycle that one of the suspects had been riding, along with a handsaw and an electric saw.
The suspects admitted that they had been approached by a middleman who offered to buy the wood from them for a businessman, but they did not know who the businessman was, police said.
