Thai Investigators Probe Failed `Sugar' Export - Salvaged Vessel Found to Carry Only Sand by Phairath Khampha 21 August 2002 Thailand's Crime Suppression Division police investigated foul play in connection with a failed sugar export after a salvage operation revealed a sunken cargo vessel had been carrying bags of sand instead of its registered payload. Another obvious Thai-style scam in which the sugar was resold at a higher price and without taxes imposed. The vessel sailed out of Bangkok Port on December 15, 2000, after being chartered to deliver to Indonesia 28,000 sacks of sugar from Refine Chaimongkol Co. The shipment had been ordered by Tate and Lyle International, a major British firm. Six days after leaving the port, the vessel sank off the coast of Saiburi district in Pattani province. The ship's captain had previously reported the onset of a storm, but instead of diverting away, he inexplicably steered the vessel towards the direction of the rough weather. Investigators had from the outset suspected the vessel might have been sunk deliberately after the sugar earmarked for export, which was exempt from taxes, was replaced so it could be sold on the domestic market at higher profit margins. Sugar was fetching a much higher price on the domestic market than abroad at the time of the incident, they said. The findings of the salvage operation confirmed the suspicions of the Sugar Committee, which informed Pol Gen Sant Sarutanont, the national police chief, of irregularities involving the shipment in March. Obviously the profit margin was much higher than the cost of the sucken ship.