A CROSS-BORDER network that uses Thai women as illegal surrogate mothers-for-hire has been exposed after the arrest of seven suspects on the weekend in Nong Khai.

The seven were apprehended in the Northeast province on their return from Laos, where the law against such practices is not as strictly enforced as in Thailand.

Dr Thongchai Keeratihutt-ayakorn, deputy head of the Health Service Support Department, said authorities would pursue the case and seek to arrest the people responsible for taking the women to Laos.

“It’s shocking,” he said. “Previously we thought they would probably only hire women in Laos to be surrogate mothers after Thailand enacted a strict law to stamp out such a practice. This shows that an active network remains continuing the business of providing surrogates for-hire in Thailand,” he said.

After the arrest, it remained unclear whether the women had been impregnated or at what stage of the assisted-reproduction process they were in, so all six suspects and their driver needed to be further questioned by authorities, he said.

Investigators had to find out who was responsible for taking care of the surrogate mothers if they were successfully impregnated, he said, as further details could lead to arrests.

According to Thai law, doctors who fail to strictly adhere to the Thai Medical Council’s regulations on assisted pregnancies are subject up to a year in jail, a fine of up to Bt20,000 or both. Those providing surrogacy-for-hire services could be jailed for up to 10 years and hit with a fine of up to Bt200,000.

Brokers and middlemen could get up to five years in jail and a fine of up to Bt100,000, while those selling sperm or eggs could be jailed for up to three years and receive a fine of up to Bt60,000.

Thai businessmen had invested in fertility clinics in Laos, Thongchai said. He plans to meet police today so the ministry can file charges against the suspects and all involved.

To tighten the law against Thais being hired as surrogate mothers, health authorities will soon require fertility clinics in Thailand to report patients’ requests collect and transport sperm, he said. The new regulations follow the discovery that two foreign men’s sperm was collected in Thailand and taken to a Lao clinic.

Authorities became aware of the issue after a Thai courier was intercepted at the border last month. Nithinon Srithaniyanan, 25, was arrested on April 20 at the same checkpoint where Saturday’s arrests occurred, while he tried to smuggle six vials of sperm inside a nitrogen tank into Laos.

In the latest case, a man from Bangkok and six Thai women carrying an empty nitrogen tank and lab equipment were arrested after returning from Laos on Saturday evening.

Nimit Saeng-amphai, chief of the 1st Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge checkpoint in Nong Khai, said the event prompted officials to increase searches of personal vehicles crossing the border, and the message would also be relayed to checkpoint staff at crossings into Cambodia.

The driver of a Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV, 47-year-old Nikhom Simarat, and six female passengers aged 25 to 34 were believed to be linked to the previous case involving Nithinon.

Nikhom and the women reportedly confessed to being hired by a 35-year-old Chinese man, who resides in Bangkok. All seven crossed the border on May 17 so the women could be implanted with blastocysts at a clinic in Vientiane, but they reportedly failed physical tests or faced other issues resulting in the cancellation of fertilisation procedures.

Nimit said a notebook retrieved from the group showed the results of embryo implants for seven other women, which would be passed on to the Crime Suppression Division to be used as evidence in prosecutions.

Nimit said the network recruited healthy Thai women who already had husbands and children to serve as surrogate mothers for fees ranging from Bt100,000 to Bt400,000.

Officials fined Nikhom Bt89,880 for a Customs violation and then released all seven on the grounds that they had merely been hired to commit a crime but had not yet done so. Authorities said yesterday the seven would face further questioning.

The technology-assisted fertilisation act bans the export of human sperm, eggs and foetuses.

Nimit said Nikhom’s car had been in and out of the country six times before the arrest, which corresponded with information found in the notebook about fertilisation results.

A 34-year-old Nakhon Phanom woman whose name was withheld said she and her husband agreed for her to take the surrogacy job for Bt300,000 to be paid after the birth. She said she took supplements for 10 days prior to the trip to Laos.