American forgery ring suspects interrogated in jail

After a two-hour meeting with investigators at Phra Khanong Police Station, Pol Lt General Sanit Mahathaworn, head of police in Bangkok, said investigators had made headway but the details could not be revealed. 

Police were still waiting for confirmation from Interpol on the identity of alleged gang leader Herbert Craig La Fon, whose photograph appeared on seven passports with different names, while two passports under his name had a photo of someone else. 

Sanit said police were looking into how Charles Edward Ditlefsen – a US citizen of Hungarian descent – was linked to this gang and what he was doing in Thailand. Ditlefsen’s body was found butchered and stuffed in a freezer in the building on Sukhumvit Soi 56 that was raided on September 23.

Police are still trying to find links between the suspects and Ditlefsen, he said.

A police source said the team was instructed to monitor the post mortem results, get additional testimony from the two American suspects James Douglas Eger and Aaron Thomas Gabel, and seek details on La Fon’s friend, who had previously died of cancer. 

La Fon has told police that his now deceased friend killed Ditlefsen. He said his role was to cut the corpse up to put it into the freezer to conceal the crime. 

Police investigators would also follow up on Ditlefsen’s reported construction businesses and other transactions and on the urine test results for La Fon, the source said.