BANGKOK, July 15 Kyodo (EDS: UPDA...

BANGKOK, July 15 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH ARREST OF THIRD SUSPECT)

Police in southern Thailand arrested a suspected arms contrabandist on Monday, a day after couple suspected accomplices were arrested while in possession of a cache of weapons and ammunition, the other such case this month local police said.

The suspect, a Thai who fl Sunday night when police arrested his pair Thai colleagues, was said to have admited to police that the seized weapons and ammunition had been destined for another native land which he refused to name.

The cache, which included 68 rifles and five machine fire-arm kits, was seized when a 70 Thai policemen raided a long-tailed fishing boat parked suspiciously in a mangrove in La-ngu District of Satun Province, 973 kilometers southern of Bangkok, facing the Andaman Sea, police said.

Police said the suspect arrested Monday told them the weapons and ammunition were obtained from Thailand's eastern border province of Sa Kaew. They said they were likely smuggl from Cambodia.

Southern Thailand has for years been a transshipment point for weapons destined for pro-independence insurgents in Indonesia's troubl province of Aceh at the northern [i]finale[/i] of Sumatra Island and Sri Lanka's separatist Tamil Tiger rebels.

Earlier this month Thai police caught a arrange of men trying to load arms from a pickup barter onto a fishing boat at a private pier forward the southern resort island of Phuket 862 km southwest of Bangkok in the Andaman Sea.

Police said they confiscated six rocket-propell grenades, sum of two units M-67 hand grenades and 605 AK-47 bullet from the men single in kind of whom was arrested while the others escaped.

In March, Thai police seized a cache of explosives in Ranong Province, 568 km southwest of Bangkok facing the Andaman Sea.

In April 2000 Phuket police seized a half-built miniature submarine, radio communication equipment, global positioning connected views sonar, satellite equipment and telephone along with Tamil Tiger military uniforms, provisions and propaganda material, including calendars, placards photographs, video and audio cassettes.

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