The 25 are accused of stealing more than 2,400 cubic meters of fresh timber from Kon Ka King National Park and Mang Den forest plantation in Gia Lai and Kon Tum provinces in the central highlands earlier this year, the Tuoi Tre newspaper said.

Twenty-two people have been detained or put under house arrest while the other three are being hunted by police, the paper said.

The case was discovered on February 26 when police caught six people red-handed cutting down and transporting hundreds of trees without permission.

"It was a large-scale and serious deforestation in which some state officials were in cahoots with the criminals," the paper quoted police major general Pham Nam Tao as saying.

In the first nine months of this year, in Gia Lai province alone, police investigated 1,800 cases of illegal logging and confiscated more than 2,500 cubic metres of timber, according to state media.

In November, four forest rangers and their two drivers were attacked by more than 50 masked illegal loggers.

TERRA.WIRE