Thai police and soldiers on Tuesday stopped a convoy of eight cars loaded with 54 illegal Burmese migrant workers in Ayutthaya’s Bang Pahan district, according to Col Ronnawut Ruangsawat.

The deputy director of the Ayutthaya office of the Internal Security Operations Command said the officials were dispatched to intercept the convoy after obtaining information that a number of Burmese migrant workers would be transported along the Asian Highway to Bangkok.

The officials stopped the eight cars, three of them registered as metered taxis, and found they were loaded with 28 men, 23 women and three children. All were charged with illegal entry and would be deported.

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The Thai drivers of the eight cars were arrested.  They said they were taking the Myanmar nationals from the border town of Mae Sai in Chiang Rai province to employers on Navamin Road in Bangkok.

They were charged with illegally transporting migrant workers and might be additionally charged with human-trafficking, pending more investigation, as the authorities believed they were part of a human-trafficking racket, Col Ronnawut said.

This article was originally published in the Bangkok Post on 24 February 2015.