Police launch hunt for four members of pirate gang
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8 men wanted for killing crew, stealing Bt120 million in foreign currency
A MANHUNT is on for four suspects who allegedly robbed a vessel in the Gulf of Thailand earlier this month, stealing nearly Bt120 million in Malaysian ringgit and Singapore dollars, before shooting all seven crew members who had jumped overboard.
Police have already arrested four suspects, including the former captain Thawee Nitpran, as well as Phan Saengthong, Prasert Songchuay and Samphan Wannarat. They have all been charged with piracy, armed robbery and murder.
This act of piracy was carried out on October 2 when the towboat was travelling from Pattani to an oilrig off the Singapore coast to deliver the foreign exchange.
Suspects identified
Those on the run have been identified as Arkhom Phoonchana, Kittiphit Thipphayakonglas, Kasem Khanparn and Somyos Sudlua, police said. Arkhom was found to have been employed by foreign-exchange firm Sahasab International, which owned some Bt119 million of the total amount stolen.
Police explained that the seven suspects approached the vessel on a speedboat and fired at it.
Arkhom, who was onboard |and feeding insider information |to his accomplices, then jumped into the water and called on his seven fellow crewmen to do the same.
That’s when the rest of the suspects boarded the ship, stole the money, shot the seven crewmen in the water, picked up Arkhom and fled.
Getting rid of vessels
The attackers then sank the towboat and later sank their speedboat before being picked up by a second vessel and returning to shore.
They were found to have changed the money and used some of the cash to buy properties.
They had also left some of the cash with their relatives.
As part of the investigation, the police officers said they had visited currency exchange outlets throughout the South and discovered that one had exchanged unusually high sums of foreign currency.
Upon inspection, police found the robbed banknotes as well as footage of Arkhom showing up in security camera footage.
