Alleged leader of passport forgery gang confirmed as US citizen

Surachet said, however, that although the US Federal Bureau of Investigation provided a lot of useful information on the suspects, it is still not known if the men committed any crimes in the US. 

Lefron initially identified himself as Peter William Johnson from the US or Peter Andrew Colter from Northern Ireland. He may have played a key role in the forgery gang and may have been involved in the death of the foreigner whose body was dismembered, Surachet said. Body parts were discovered in a commercial freezer in the building’s ground floor, he added. 

Immigration Police chief Pol Lt-General Natthorn Phrosunthorn revealed that there was no record of Lefron ever entering Thailand, therefore it is suspected that he travelled with a fake passport. He said police are able to confirm that he is a suspect in another fraud case, which is past the statute of limitation.

The second American suspect, James Douglas Eger, travelled in and out of Thailand at least 148 times since 2013 and his long-term visa is valid until next year. It is believed Eger planned to retire in Thailand. 

The third suspect Aaron Thomas Gabel has also travelled in and out of Thailand several times and is believed to have three Thai wives. 

No previous criminal records have been found on Eger or Gabel, he said.

The fact that the dismembered body was stored in the freezer instead of being disposed of indicates that there was a specific purpose for keeping the remains or there was a special attachment with the deceased, city police chief Lt-General Sanit Mahathaworn said yesterday. 

Police are waiting for forensic result on the fingerprints collected from the black plastic bags that contained the body parts, he added. 

Medical examiners have so far identified the dismembered body as being a blond-haired Caucasian man in his 40s. The body had been decomposing before it was put in the freezer.  

The dead man’s fingerprints have been sent to all precincts with foreign embassies to try and determine his identity, he added. 

Though the police have yet to determine if the death was natural or murder, they have decided that for now they will assume the death was caused by another person and that one of the three suspects was responsible, he said. 

Sanit added that though the time of death cannot be determined yet, the deceased was wearing a pair of sports shoes that were manufactured in 2008, around the time the freezer was bought. Asked if there might be any romantic reasons behind the death and storage of the body, Sanit said anything was possible, though police would first focus on the man’s identity, nationality and cause of death before piecing the information together to determine what might have happened. 

Sanit added that police have also identified a woman who took care of a 65-year-old man who was Lefron’s friend. Lefron claims this man owned the freezer. The man apparently died of cancer and was cremated at a temple in Huai Kwang area in March.