Act on pork smuggling

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) deserves praise for tackling the high-profile pork smuggling saga, but broader government action is still needed to solve the overall issue.
The infamous case briefly grabbed national headlines last year after 161 containers loaded with pork and innards were left at Laem Chabang Port in Chon Buri in April.
What was in these containers were just a fraction of the contraband pork flooding the local market. The DSI’s subsequent probe found 2,277 containers had been smuggled into the country since 2020.
Despite this, the Agriculture Ministry was not eager to discover the truth and prosecute wrongdoers, especially officials who let contraband food into the country.
Nevertheless, the good news is the DSI finally submitted its first investigation brief to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) this week.
The probe is related to the 161 containers mentioned above; the DSI is still investigating other cases.
One involves the 2,277 cargo containers smuggled in earlier.
Another is a probe into illegal operators and their accomplices.
For the latter, the DSI has implicated 14 people — officials and politicians who helped local and foreign businessmen import illegal pork from Brazil and countries in Europe, which was falsely declared as salmon or polymer plastics.
Without officials and politicians turning a blind eye, it would be impossible for these 2,277 cargo containers to have reached Thai shores.
These lucrative contraband deals destroyed the local pork industry.
The hardest-hit group is a network of small-scale farmers with around 200,000 members that cannot compete with smuggled products.
They struggled for three years following an outbreak of African Swine Fever (AFS) and low demand during the Covid-19 pandemic. The illegal pork saga has rubbed more salt into their wounds.
It is still unclear why previous governments and former agriculture ministers who oversaw the Department of Livestock ignored the problem.
Indeed, local operators had warned the government many times.
To be fair, the Srettha government tried to tackle the problem after the news came out. Yet the previous government failed to come down hard enough.
Even worse, the Srettha cabinet transferred the DSI’s director-general, Pol Maj Suriya Singhakamol — who led the pork saga investigation– without an explanation.
The transfer order came a day after Pol Maj Suriya took officials on a search of retailer CP Axtra Plc, formerly Siam Makro, as part of investigations into pork smuggling.
The transfer only showed that the authorities were not serious about tackling the problem.
The Paetongtarn government has a chance to do better.
It is hoped the government will use the DSI and the justice system to bring wrongdoers, either officials, politicians, or even involved companies, to justice.
Meanwhile, the Agriculture Ministry and its Livestock Department must move out of neutral gear and crack down on smuggled products in local markets. Anything less than that means the government is only encouraging contraband smuggling to continue.