Drug bust leads to hunt for officer

Efforts by the Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) to seize the assets of Pol Senior Sgt-Major Manas Suepho are also under way. 

Working as junior officer at Pracha Chuen police station in northern Bangkok, Manas has possessions worth about Bt50 million, comprising homes, cars and cash in several bank accounts.

The six others wanted by police are Prawin Thuaypha, a former police colleague of Manas’s; Prawin’s wife, Suchada; Sathit Saengla and his wife, Buakhai; and Raphin Khamfaeng and his wife, Suthep. 

They are suspected of running drugs deals with Manas acting as the group’s financier, together with Thiti Phengsuk, who was arrested in the incident on Monday.

Manas and Thiti allegedly drove through a checkpoint in Lampang. The vehicle they were travelling in was then stopped by police, who found 1,280,000 amphetamine tablets and 5 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine (“ice”) in it. 

Thiti was arrested but Manas managed to escape, despite being pursued by anti-narcotics agents and local police. He is now thought to be on the run in Lampang, where police are hunting him down, using sniffer dogs and pursuit vehicles.

A wanted poster, released both in Lampang and Bangkok, calls for the public to be on the look-out for Manas, who is possibly travelling in a white BMW with a Bangkok licence plate, which probably picked him up from a location in Lampang. He is likely in Lampang, but could be travelling to Bangkok, according to the poster.

Lampang’s police chief, Pol Maj-General Phornchai Phakphongsri, said Manas had been instrumental in transporting illegal tablets to Bangkok in more than 10 trips, during each of which 200,000-500,000 pills were moved. 

Police established Prawin’s link to the case because he is registered as the joint owner of a white Isuzu pickup that also drove through the checkpoint in Lampang, and was later found abandoned. 

Police later located his wife’s parents, who said they merely knew of Prawin as a loner who had built a home for Suchada in Uthai Thani and had asked them to live with her at the property.

Police searched the home and seized a number of firearms and vehicles suspected of having been bought with drug money. 

A police team also seized two vehicles after searching a home of one of the other suspects, Sathit. 

The Anti-Money Laundering Office and the ONCB are preparing to seize the assets of all the suspects if they are found to have been purchased with drug money.

ONCB secretary-general Pongsapat Phongcharoen said assets worth about Bt582 million had been seized around the country from drug dealers so far this month, while assets worth Bt1.76 billion had been seized from 5,055 suspects. 

An auction to sell autos and motorcycles seized from drug suspects will be held next month. It is expected to fetch Bt100 million, he said.