BANGKOK: The Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), together with security agencies, is expanding its investigation into the case of a Thai flight attendant arrested with 900 grammes of heroin at Melbourne Airport in Australia.
A deputy ONCB secretary-general said the woman’s current status is still that of a detainee, not an accused person, while Thai authorities have sent evidence to coordinate with Australian police and Thai consular officials to support her legal defence.
Officials believe she may have fallen victim to a transnational scammer network involved in smuggling a large quantity of narcotics believed to have originated from syndicates in the Golden Triangle.
Areepak Ngernbamroong, deputy secretary-general of the ONCB, said on Monday (July 6) that the work had now been divided among agencies.
She said three to four related arrests in Bangkok, which led to the seizure of more than 26 kilogrammes of heroin, would fall under the responsibility of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), as the network appeared to be a large-scale transnational criminal organisation.
The case followed evidence that a delivery rider had received heroin from a foreign national. A Lao couple was also found to be involved. The drug-delivery channels were divided into two types: postal delivery and direct hand-to-hand delivery.
Pol Maj-General Theeradet Thumsuthee, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, had earlier said the network was linked to scammers. The group allegedly created avatar pages to send mass chat messages to flight attendants or people who frequently travel abroad, offering payments for carrying goods across borders.
Areepak said these elements suggested that the organisation was large and operated at an international level. DSI has therefore been assigned to take charge of the case.
As for whether the cases arrested in Bangkok were connected to the female flight attendant, investigators would need to combine all evidence and examine the links again, she said.
“On the Australian side of the case, we have held discussions with the Australian Federal Police, or AFP, and learned that the person who was supposed to receive the heroin is known as Dear, a Thai national whose identity is real. We now know this person’s real first and last name,” Areepak said.
She said Dear had been living in Australia for about 10 years, though it remained unclear under what status or whether this person had become a citizen.
Officials believe the network in Australia is likely a major one and does not involve only Thai nationals. The AFP will be responsible for expanding the investigation to identify who the final recipients of the narcotics were.
The investigation found that Dear’s alleged actions were not carried out for the first time. Similar incidents had reportedly happened several times before, with the same person, Dear, acting as the receiver. Thai authorities have several pieces of evidence linking the case to Dear and have already handed them to the AFP.
Regarding the flight attendant’s boyfriend, officers invited him to give a statement and said he had cooperated well.
He told investigators that after his girlfriend received a parcel box containing elephant-pattern bags delivered by the rider, she took the box up to her room before packing the items into her suitcase. Before doing so, all the elephant-pattern bags were opened and checked, and nothing was found inside. She then placed all the bags into her luggage.
The suitcase later passed through an X-ray machine on the Thai side without any irregularities being detected.
On the issue of payment, where statements have not yet matched, the deputy ONCB secretary-general said the figure of 8,800 baht (US$264) came from the Australian police investigation after officers found information on a mobile phone.
However, Thai investigators still do not know the full facts. There were reports of two transfers of 1,700 baht each — the first allegedly made once the goods were received, and the second when an air ticket was available — totalling 3,400 baht.
Areepak said that checks of the flight attendant’s bank account had not found those transactions, while the amount of money in the account was not large. Investigators therefore cannot yet confirm whether the information is accurate, and deeper questioning will be required.
She also referred to the statement of the male rider who delivered the parcel to the flight attendant. He reportedly said he had carried out similar deliveries three or four times before, but this was the first time he had delivered items to this particular flight attendant.
Areepak said the flight attendant currently remains a detainee awaiting legal proceedings and has not yet become an accused person.
However, authorities still cannot say how much, if at all, she knew about the drug-smuggling operation. Evidence such as the rider’s statement — claiming this was the first time he had delivered items to her — could be interpreted as suggesting that she may not have acted intentionally.
Still, Areepak said there were many issues that needed further fact-finding to determine whether the incident resulted from a lack of awareness. Thai authorities will send this information to the AFP, the Thai embassy and the consulate so it can be used in her legal defence.
On the movement of drugs involving Lao nationals, the deputy ONCB secretary-general explained that the route began with drug traffickers in the Golden Triangle, located to the north of Thailand.
In the past, attempts were made to bring narcotics into the country through northern Thailand. However, as officers intensified interdiction efforts in high-risk areas, the transport pattern changed, with networks attempting to move drugs through the north-east, which borders Laos.
Areepak stressed that this did not mean Laos had neglected the issue, as Thailand and Laos continuously coordinate and exchange information.
She said drug-smuggling networks had been pressured away from northern routes and were therefore trying to move narcotics from the northern side into the north-east, particularly through Nakhon Phanom, Bueng Kan, Loei and Nong Khai.
The Mekong River in these areas is not very wide, while the route is long, making it difficult to deploy personnel to monitor the entire border continuously. As a result, some narcotics have managed to slip into Thailand.
Most of the seized narcotics were already packaged before being passed from one group to another until they could be stored somewhere inside the country.
Areepak said the drugs in the flight attendant case may have been only one operational line of a larger organisation connected to the Golden Triangle.
The investigation found that the network divided tasks into separate stages. Each person was responsible only for their assigned role, without necessarily being connected to or knowing the others.
In Thailand, the investigation is now being handled through integrated cooperation among the ONCB, the Narcotics Suppression Bureau, the DSI and the Metropolitan Police Bureau.
Areepak said current drug-trafficking operations were no longer linked only to narcotics, but could also involve scammers and other offences.
Therefore, to determine whether the networks are connected, investigators must examine financial trails. - The Nation/ANN
