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BANGKOK : Thai police said Sunday they had seized 1,800 bottles of contraband bird flu vaccine worth over 20 million baht (558,000 dollars), in what is believed to be the biggest such bust in Thailand.
Koh Samui's marine police said they arrested three Thai men at a bus station on the island on Saturday, as they attempted to smuggle the 250 millilitre (8.5 ounce) bottles of avian influenza vaccine into the kingdom.
The vaccine, made in China and destined for Bangkok via Hong Kong, was for use on poultry and was banned in Thailand in 2005 for fear that its widespread use could cause the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus to mutate.
"This is the first arrest in Samui and it is likely to be the biggest arrest in Thailand too," Police Lieutenant Colonel Kosol Kaenkaew told AFP.
He said the smugglers had been charged with bringing illegal medicine into the country and violating customs laws. Only one of the men had confessed.
The penalty would be a fine of four times the value of the smuggled goods and a maximum of 10 years in jail.
Thailand is among the countries hardest hit by the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, recording 25 human cases, 17 of them fatal, since the most recent outbreak here in 2004. The latest death was confirmed in late September 2006.
Bird flu has badly hurt Thailand's poultry industry, once the world's biggest, after countries around the world slapped bans on raw Thai chicken after the 2004 outbreak.
Thailand, the world's fourth-largest exporter of poultry, now only exports cooked chicken. - AFP /dt
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