Vietnamese trawlers arrested in Thai waters

CHONBURI, THAILAND, January 9 (TNA) - Thai marine authorities have seized two Vietnamese trawlers and detained all their 21 crew members when they were illegally fishing in the Thai sea, near Juang Island, off the country's eastern coastal Chonburi province. The marine authorities, comprising chief of Thailand's first navy area command Vice Admiral Roongsak Serisawasdi, in his capacity as the director of a maritime enforcement coordinating centre, area 1, as well as Thai marine police, officials of local fishery management and marine and coastal natural resources conservation centres in the upper part of the Gulf of Thailand, rounded up the two illegal Vietnamese trawlers and led them to anchoring at a Royal Thai Navy pier in Chonburi's Sattahip District on Wednesday morning. The two trawlers have been seized and all the detained Vietnamese crew members were being questioned by Sattahip police and will be prosecuted on charges of trespassing and illegal fishing in the Thai waters and violating the Thai fishing rights law. (TNA)