BANGKOK, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- A group of 19 Myanmar men were arrested on Friday after illegally entering southern Thailand, the police said.
The group slipped across the border from Kawthaung township in Myanmar to Ranong province in Thailand and then were brought by an unidentified human trafficking suspect aboard a cargo truck to the woods about two kilometers from Asia Highway in Bang Klam district of Songkhla province, according to police superintendent Pol. Col. Sirinat Sirabunphak.
The Myanmar nationals had taken temporary shelter in the woods, waiting for another human trafficking suspect who would have picked them up and managed for them to slip across the border from southern Thailand to northern Malaysia, said the superintendent.
Each of the illegal aliens paid 800,000 kyat (about 663 U.S. dollars) to those suspected human traffickers who have remained at large, the police colonel said.
The money was given in exchange for access to a promised job in Malaysia.
