Thai Police have arrested 175 North Koreans who illegally entered the country and were found hiding in an abandoned home in Bangkok, police said on Wednesday.

They are the largest group of the North Koreans rounded up in Thailand.

The group, comprising of 136 women and 39 men, was charged with illegal entry after failing to produce passports and visas, the head of Thai immigration police told AFP.

"They entered Thailand at a border point somewhere in the north and have been in the kingdom around two months so far," Lieutenant General Suwat Thamrongsrisakul said.

Since their arrest late Tuesday, they have been detained at the immigration office in downtown Bangkok, he said.

"The police charged the North Koreans with illegal entry, and they will be taken to court within 48 hours. After that they could be deported back home," he said.

"Police are also investigating the human smuggling gang who arranged the smuggling of these North Koreans into the country,'' Suwat said.

Meanwhile AFP quoted South Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon as saying in Seoul, "we are trying to sort out related details through our embassy in Thailand. The government will hold consultations with the Thai government before reviewing measures to be taken," Ban Ki-Moon said.

In Bangkok, Immigration police chief Songphol Wattanachai said 16 members of the group had been granted refugee status by the Bangkok office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and are scheduled to leave Thailand for South Korea in a few days. It was not immediately clear whether they also would be charged with illegal entry.

Songphol said the North Koreans had entered Thailand in separate groups through the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai, and had been staying in the two-story house for the past two months.

An official at the North Korean embassy earlier said police had not informed them of the arrests.

"We don't have this kind of news or information. We have not been contacted by immigration, then we can not confirm about this," he said.

"We will do nothing, we will not contact the immigration bureau to clarify this information," he added.

Chronic food and energy shortages have driven a growing number of North Koreans from their impoverished homeland, and many of them have been arriving at Thailand's northern border.

Typically North Koreans arriving here escaped their country through China, and then trekked through the Golden Triangle region where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand border each other.

Agence France Presse/The Nation