BANGKOK (AP) – The head of Thailand’s state zoological enterprise was shot dead on Saturday while conducting an investigation into the suspicious disappearance of rare animals at a zoo in a southern province.
Police Captain Komalpan Srithep said Suriya Saengpong, director of thailand’s Zoological Parks Organization, had been shot several at the offices of Songkhla Zoo.
Srithep, the alleged gunman, a senior zoo official, fled the shooting site and committed suicide in the rooms of his home.
The motive for the killings was unclear without delay, Srithep said the alleged marksman was one of the 4 senior zoo officials being investigated.
Extinct animals at Songkhla Zoo made headlines in Thailand last week when leaked documents showed that Natural Resources and Environment Minister Varawut Silpa-archa was not satisfied with an initial investigation into the disappearance of a rare albino barking deer in February.
Songkhla Zoo Director Chalermvudh Kasetsomboon reported that he had received images indicating that a Burmese python had eaten the deer, but his claim was met with skepticism.
Online page Israel News, which published the leaked documents, said there were suspicions that the missing deer, along with other animals, had been sold or stolen through traffickers.
Varawut then ordered a new investigation, which Suriya traveled to Songkhla from Bangkok to release on Saturday.
The illegal wildlife industry generates about $25 billion in illegal revenue sources each year, according to TRAFFIC, a foreign conservation organization that monitors those activities. It is the fourth most lucrative criminal activity in the world after the trafficking of drugs, human beings and weapons.
Gun-related violence is not unusual in Thailand, it is rare for a senior official to be killed as a result of an office conflict.
In February, in northeastern Thailand, a Thai army soldier who thought he had been deceived by his colonel into a genuinely owned transaction shot the officer and then introduced him to a shootout that left 31 other people dead, he added himself.