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Thai authorities said Tuesday arrest warrants have been issued for three more military officers over human trafficking, as part of a crackdown that sparked a regional migrant crisis earlier this year.
Previously only one senior officer - Lieutenant-General Manas Kongpan - had been charged over the smuggling of Rohingya Muslim and Bangladeshi migrants through southern Thailand, after successive Thai governments largely ignored the brutal trade.
People-smugglers abandoned thousands of migrants at sea or in jungle camps after a Thai clampdown on the multi-million industry in May, a crisis that eventually forced a belated Southeast Asia-wide response.
Arrest warrants have now been issued for “four military officers - three from the army and one in the navy”, Paween Pongsiri, a southern deputy regional commander, said.
READ MORE: Senior Thailand army officer among 72 indicted on people-trafficking charges

This number includes Lieutenant-General Manas, with Paween declining to name the others.
Manas is accused of being a major kingpin in the lucrative human trafficking and smuggling trade.
Most migrants sought a new life in Malaysia, but many found themselves held captive in dismal camps on both sides of the Thai-Malay border - or on boats - until relatives stumped up ransoms.
Manas’s alleged involvement raised awkward questions for junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who has repeatedly justified his coup last year as a much-needed antidote to graft that he says flourished under a series of elected civilian governments. Manas was promoted while Prayut was army chief.
While rights groups welcomed his arrest, they said it was unlikely such an influential officer would have acted alone.
Paween added that a total of 153 warrants have been issued for trafficking since the crackdown, with 90 people detained so far. At least 72 have been indicted with no trials yet under way.
Thailand has long been a hub for the trafficking of persecuted Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, who in recent years have been increasingly joined on their perilous sea crossings by Bangladeshi economic migrants.
The belated Thai crackdown came after the United States last year relegated the kingdom to the bottom rung of an influential report ranking nations on their anti-trafficking efforts.
In July it was was placed in the bottom tier for a second year in a row, alongside nations like Iran, Libya, North Korea and Syria.
On Monday national police chief Somyot Poompanmoung told reporters that 32 policemen including immigration officers in southern provinces have been transferred from their jobs over “involvement in the trafficking of Rohingya” migrants.


Three more Thai military officers wanted for human trafficking

Rohingya illegal immigrants at an immigration detention centre in Kanchanaburi, Thailand in 2013.  File photo: Reuters

Lieutenant-General Manas Kongpan

'The bad dream has ended': Phuket-based journalists found not guilty of defaming Thailand's navy

Australian journalist Alan Morison with Thai colleague Chutima Sidasathian at the provincial court in Phuket island. Photo: AFP

Rohingya migrants call out for food and assistance from their rickety boat off the southern Thai island of Koh Lipe.  File photo: AFP. 

Rohingya migrants call out for food and assistance from their rickety boat off the southern Thai island of Koh Lipe.  Photo: AFP

UN warns of fresh wave of boatpeople in Asia as monsoon season ends

Thousands of Rohingya flee persecution.Photo: AP

Malaysia finds 24 more bodies of human trafficking victims

Soldiers stand guard as rescue workers dig out skeletons at the site of a mass grave in Thailand's southern Songkhla province bordering Malaysia in May. Photo: AFP

Malaysian forensic teams reveal grim secrets of mass grave at jungle trafficking camp

Members of the media look on as police exhume a grave in a jungle at Bukit Wang Burma in the northern Malaysian state of Perlis. Photo: AFP

Royal Malaysia Police forensic team dig at a mass grave discovered in the Wang Burma hills. Photo: EPA

Members of Royal Malaysia Police forensic team exhume human remains from a the mass grave site in Wang Kelian, Perlis. Photo: EPA

Thai general to be questioned over human trafficking, six years after SCMP revealed role in Rohingya abuse

Manus Kongpan, right, is shown overseeing the secret detention of Rohingya migrants on the remote island of Koh Sai Daeng, in this photo obtained by the South China Morning Post in 2009. Photo: SCMP Pictures

How the SCMP revealed Manus Kongpan's role in the detention of Rohingya migrants, in January 2009, after obtaining exclusive photos of the secret operation. 

The South China Morning Post first exposed the Thai military's role in the secret expulsion of Rohingya migrants in January 2009. Hundreds died after being towed out to sea and simply cast adrift. 

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