BANGKOK, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Two Vietnamese men were arrested in northern Thailand on Thursday on charges of smuggling carcasses of tigers destined for Vietnam, police said.

The Vietnamese nationals, identified as Le Binh, 40, and Nguyen Van Tung, 29, were accused of smuggling the remains of the protected wildlife at a bus station in Phitsanulok province, about 425 km north of Bangkok, said deputy police superintendent Pol. Lt. Col. Nonthaworn See-indra.

The smuggling suspects traveled by bus from the northwestern province of Tak en route to the northeastern province of Mukdahan with the tigers' dried flesh and bones hidden in bags and found in the cargo bay of the tour bus in which they were riding in the wee hours of Thursday, according to the deputy police superintendent.

The Vietnamese confessed that they would have traveled from Mukdahan to their home country through Laos with the tigers' carcasses which they had bought from a fellow countryman in Tak for 30,000 baht (about 909 U.S. dollars), he said.