Police have gathered evidence for an investigation into a row between the Tarutao National Marine Park and a resort on Koh Lipe in Satun province.
Acting deputy police chief Pol Gen Wirachai Songmetta went to the area where Bandhaya Villas and Resort is located with two geologists from the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry on Monday to collect samples of earth and dried trees for investigations.
Authorities showed a search warrant to the managers of the villas and resort, together with a lawyer of Bandhaya and use a backhoe in the operation, the Royal Thai Police said in a Facebook post.
The test on the samples collected from the operation will come about one week, it added.
The move followed a complaint lodged last month by the park against the resort operator on the island in their land row.
The complaint was made after an examination of satellite images showed no signs of prior use of the plot where the resort is on.
The park, which includes Lipe island off Muang district, suspects the Nor Sor 3 papers for the piece of land might have been obtained illegally since it had earlier been unoccupied.
Manit Kaweerat, who owns the resort, said last month that he had verified the land papers before purchasing the plot from a former owner and is ready to go to court to prove his rights over the land.
Bandhaya had been locked in a dispute with the Royal Thai Police over another land dispute in a court case.
The developer of the resort challenged in court the police’s right to use the land and demanded that Koh Lipe police station, along with other structures, be demolished.
It accused the police of encroaching on the 10-rai plot but the police argued the park had granted the land to them to build the police station and accommodation for police officers in 1989.
In 2012, the first court ruled in the resort developer’s favour. However, the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court overruled it and dismissed the lawsuit.
According to the Supreme Court ruling, the land documents held by the resort developer were not good enough to overrule the permission granted to the police force by Tarutao park officials to use the land.