THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Bhutan working with Thai authorities on drug-trafficking case

Bhutan working with Thai authorities on drug-trafficking case

THE Royal Bhutanese Embassy in Thailand is providing support to Thai agencies including police to verify allegations against citizens suspected to have been involved in the death of a Bhutanese man in Bangkok recently.

The Bhutanese newspaper Kuensel reported that the embassy was working closely with authorities and that efforts were underway to help the family transport the man’s body back to Bhutan, according to sources.
Authorities in Bhutan were in the process of confirming the alleged involvement of suspects in the death of the man and drug trafficking.
It could take a few weeks before the body can be transported back to Bhutan, because the identification process was a lengthy one, the paper said.
Thai authorities have asked for a DNA sample from a relative of the man found dead in a canal – Bangkok’s Klong Ong Ang – on April 3.
Thai police have told the media six Bhutanese were suspected to be involved and given out personal details, plus photographs.
Recent media reports have said Thai police will push for extradition of the suspects. The incident made headlines across major news outlets for days.
In more than 20 years, only five Bhutanese have been arrested in drug-related crimes abroad.
Sources said the first case involved a Bhutanese who attempted to smuggle cannabis into the United States. Two men and a woman were arrested at Tokyo airport with 8 kilograms of cannabis resin in 1998.
 
Rarely involved in smuggling
But the latest case is the second time in three years that people from the tiny mountain kingdom were allegedly involved in a drug case in Thailand.
Thai police have said an Indian man was the leader of the group suspected of trafficking drugs. The individual named by police was arrested in 2013 in relation to ketamine smuggled into Thailand by a 26-year-old Bhutanese woman arrested in September of that year.
The Bhutanese woman was caught with ketamine in her luggage worth about 30 million Bhutanese ngultrum – Bt15.8 million – and sentenced to seven years jail in February 2014.
The woman told authorities that an Indian man promised to pay her Bt5,000 to deliver the parcel, found to contain the ketamine, to another Indian in Bangkok.
The incident also led to the detention of three others, including the Indian citizen, by police in 2014. But because ketamine is not a controlled substance in Bhutan, the attorney general had no legal basis to prosecute and eventually had to release all suspects. Meanwhile, the incident left many Bhutanese in shock. 
“It shocked me and my co-workers in the office,” a civil servant said.
A corporate employee returning from South Korea last week also went through an ordeal at Bangkok airport. The frequent traveller said that Bhutanese usually do not have any problems in disembarking and when going through security checks.
Another businesswoman expressed fears of delays at customs points as Bhutanese could be treated more strictly at security checkpoints.
“Such incidents could put us through unnecessary trouble while undergoing the process,” she said.
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