Thai authorities probe semen smuggling case

BANGKOK, April 21 (TNA) - A Thai man who smuggled semen across the border to Lao PDR has been fined 200,000 baht and then released, while an official probe on four clinics in Bangkok that are alleged to have involved in the case are under way. Thai customs officials in the northeastern Nongkhai Province, neighbouring Lao PDR, arrested the 25-year-old Bangkokian at a border checkpoint on the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge on April 20 while he was trying to smuggle six tubes of human semen, contained in a nitrogen freezing tank, to Lao PDR. The man confessed he was taking the semen belonging to two men, a Vietnamese and a Chinese, to Vientiane and he had done so for 13 times. The Thai customs officials seized and gave the human semen to local public health officials for a further investigation to find out whether there are more people having involved in the case and whether the alleged clinics have a legal operational license. In Bangkok, Dr. Thongchai Khirithihattayakorn, Deputy Director–General of the Department of Health Service Support, under the Thai Ministry of Public Health, led a team of officials to inspect one of four clinics on Wireless Road where the 25-year-old man said he received the semen. Meanwhile, the fertility clinic in Vientiane, where the Thai man was to deliver the semen, was reportedly opened for their normal operation as usual. (TNA)