Suspect in weapons case transferred buses after first broke down, police told

Chatchai Yuwachit of Nakhon Ratchasima transport office said the terminal was equipped with 40 cameras and it is hoped that one of them may have captured the individual who put the war weapons onto the bus.

Police found the weapons on the bus when it arrived at Mo Chit Bus Terminal in Bangkok on Sunday. 

The weapons seized included one AK-47 rifle, 209 rounds of ammunitions, two M-67 and two M-61 grenades, four M-14 anti-personnel mines as well as two type 67 and one type 82.2 hand grenades. All of them were intact.

Chatchai said the investigation could take some time as the terminal was very crowded because of the long holiday weekend.

The initial investigation showed that the owner of the luggage loaded with weapons appeared to have carried it onto the bus at Nakhon Ratchasima terminal, rather than loading it in the bus’s baggage compartment, meaning that he or she did not pass the bus firm’s registration system.

It was also discovered that the bus on which the weapons were found was not the original bus that departed Nakhon Ratchasima bound for Bangkok but one that came to pick up passengers when the original bus broke down near a monument in the Don Muang area.

Anong Deejantuek, a hostess on the spare bus, told police that the owner of the suitcase was a man of around 30 with closely cropped hair. He was 170cm tall, and wore a short-sleeve shirt. She said during the transfer she saw the man with the luggage, which he put under the bus.
The man then climbed into the bus and sat in the back seat. “I asked the man where he would get off and he said at Wat Samiennari. When I said the bus did not stop there, he said nothing. When the bus arrived at Mo Chit Terminal, he got off the bus without the luggage, so I became suspicious. The luggage was very heavy, so I alerted police,” she said.