Singaporean 'high-level drug trafficker', 31, arrested after deportation from Thailand
The man will be charged in court on Sept 20 with drug trafficking.
PHOTO: The Nation/Asia News Network
PUBLISHED ONSeptember 19, 2024 12:58 PMBYLok Jian Wen
SINGAPORE - A 31-year-old Singaporean man, who was arrested by Thai police in his landed property residence near Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport for suspected drug trafficking offences, was deported to Singapore and arrested by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) on Sept 19.
He will be charged in court on Sept 20 with drug trafficking.
The wanted fugitive in Singapore, who has not been named by the Singapore authorities, was nabbed by Thai police on Sept 17 and deported two days later, said CNB.
Thailand’s Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) had been tipped off about the man by CNB on Aug 12, said Lieutenant-General Panurat Lakboon, secretary-general of the ONCB.
The fugitive’s drug trafficking activities were uncovered by investigations into two separate drug cases in December 2020 and November 2022, CNB said on Sept 19.
An arrest warrant was issued against him for his suspected role in supplying drugs to associates for subsequent sale and trafficking in Singapore.
Immigration records showed he had been out of Singapore since April 11, 2016, leading CNB to reach out to its foreign counterparts, including ONCB, for assistance.
CNB had told its Thai counterparts that the man had fled from a Singapore arrest warrant and was living in Thailand.
He was found to have entered Thailand using a Vanuatu passport earlier in 2024, Thai immigration officials said.
The fugitive, a suspected high-level drug trafficker, is accused of using Thailand as a transit point for sending drugs such as crystal meth, ketamine and Ecstasy to Australia and Singapore, according to ONCB.
He was leading an unusually affluent lifestyle without having legitimate employment, said Lt-Gen Panurat.
The Thai police raid on the fugitive’s rented house in Bang Kaeo town turned up multiple luxury watches and gold pieces. Thai officers confiscated assets such as a luxury car worth 15 million baht (S$585,000) in his possession in Bang Phli, Samut Prakan – the district where the country’s Suvarnabhumi international airport is located.
Drug trafficking network
Thai investigators said the Singaporean fugitive is linked to two other cases involving Singaporeans shipping drugs from Thailand to other countries by air and sea.
In March 2021, Thailand’s Anti-Trafficking in Persons Task Force (AITF) intercepted packages of drugs, including Ecstasy and ketamine, sent by another Singaporean man that were bound for Singapore. He was arrested in June 2021.
An Australia-bound package containing crystal meth, sent by a third Singaporean in November 2021, was similarly intercepted by the AITF. He was arrested in March 2022 in Samut Prakan.
Both men were connected to the 31-year-old fugitive’s drug trafficking network, said Lt-Gen Panurat, adding that Thailand was a transit point, not the source of nor the manufacturing hub for the drugs.
The two other men involved in those two cases, aged 21 and 29 at the time of arrest, were subsequently sentenced in Singapore to imprisonment and caning for trafficking methamphetamine, said CNB.
This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
