Thai police nab South Asian drug traffickers

BANGKOK, June 11 (TNA) - Thai immigration police have arrested a gang of South Asian drug traffickers who were hired to take heroine out of the country by flights to Hong Kong and other third countries. Major Police General Choochat Tharichat, Commander of the Investigation Division of Thailand's Police Immigration Bureau, told a press conference in Bangkok on Monday that his team first captured a Nepali man, identified as Singha bir gongbotamang, at the Chiang Mai International Airport in the Thai North recently and seized 15.5 kilograms of heroine hidden in his luggage. Major Police General Choochat said his team, after questioning the first man, apprehended two other Indian and Nepali men later, identified respectively as Gurung lal and Sudarshan thapa, at a condominium in Bangkok's On Nut area and seized another more than one kilograms of heroine in the form of eatable capsules, before they could swallow the drugs into their stomachs and leave for Hong Kong. Besides, his team found and seized tools and other materials the two arrested men used for making the heroine capsules. The Thai immigration police commander stated that his team then tracked down another South Asian man, identified as Gurung bir prasad and four other members of the gang in an adjacent On Nut area. According to the Thai immigration police commander, all the seven arrested men were in the same drug trafficking network based on a detection of their financial and telecommunication routes and his team are tracking down more members of the gang. The Thai immigration police team found, meanwhile, that the South Asian drug gangsters were hired to take the drugs from Thailand's northern border areas to Bangkok, before trafficking the drugs out of the Thai Kingdom by flights to Hong Kong by swallowing the narcotics into their stomachs to evade individual checkups at airports. (TNA)