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Thai Police Make Rare Arrest of Politician Accused of Trafficking Migrants
Into Fishing Industry

VOA News

   BANGKOK - Thai police have made the rare arrest of a local politician
   -- along with six other people --on suspicion of trafficking Myanmar
   migrants onto fishing trawlers and forcing them into debt bondage.

   The arrests Tuesday by the federal Department of Special Investigation
   come as the kingdom tries to clean up complex supply chains in its
   multibillion-dollar seafood sector.

   Thailand's fishing industry was rocked in 2016 when a
   Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigation by the Associated Press uncovered
   slavery and abuse of migrant labor riddling its seafood sector, the
   seventh largest in the world, supplying tuna, shrimp and pet food to
   global supermarkets.

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

   Thai authorities have scrambled to clean up an industry marked by
   shadowy brokers, middlemen and influential local figures who dominate
   its ports and squeeze profit from trafficked, unpaid or debt-bound
   labor. The EU lifted its threat in 2019.

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