Russian siblings remain missing after motorcycle discovery

Police found a dismantled motorcycle belonging to two missing Russian siblings buried at an old cemetery in Chonburi on Wednesday, intensifying a search that has focused on two Thai men wanted for questioning.

The siblings had been missing since July 26. Officers from Huai Yai Police Station, Chonburi provincial investigators and tourist police searched the former Thung Luang cemetery near Chak Taeng intersection in Huai Yai, Bang Lamung district, after residents reported seeing a group burying a motorcycle.

The site is about 200 metres from the Na Jomtien–Map Ta Phut motorway road.

Officers dug up a black-and-grey Honda ADV 150, registration number 4 Kor Sor 6379 Chonburi, which had been dismantled and buried in separate pieces. Police identified it as belonging to the missing siblings.

Search expands around burial site

Investigators searched the surrounding area for the siblings and further evidence. Rescue workers were also asked to prepare divers to examine a pond near the burial site.

The area is close to the home of a man known as Pong, who had appeared in previously circulated footage and was being treated as a person of interest in the investigation.

The siblings reportedly sent their mother a message on the day they disappeared saying they believed someone was following them.

Chakkrit Boonmak, 56, an assistant subdistrict headman known as Uncle Wor, said local officials examined surveillance-camera routes before identifying the cemetery as a suspicious location.

He said an acquaintance told him that several men had arrived with digging equipment at about 10pm the previous night.

Chakkrit went to the site at about 10am and found four men there. Believing that they might be burying a body, he withdrew and alerted the village headman and police because he feared they could be armed.

The four men had fled by the time officers returned. Police later excavated the site and found the motorcycle, but the missing siblings were not there.

Police search house linked to suspect

Tourist police, immigration officers, Bang Lamung district officials, police and more than 15 volunteers also surrounded a house in Huai Yai on Wednesday after receiving information that a man known as Thong might be hiding there.

Officers called for him to surrender through a loudspeaker, but nobody emerged until his 55-year-old sister, Kondin Malinin, came outside.

She told officers that her brother did not live at the property and had not returned for several days.

Kondin said she last saw Thong on July 26, when he arrived with Pong on a red Honda Scoopy motorcycle at about 10am.

Both men were covered in mud and told her they had been catching fish near Wat Yansangwararam in Na Jomtien.

She said Pong was dressed like a police officer, introduced himself as an officer and had a handgun placed at the front of the motorcycle.

When she asked why he was carrying the weapon in that manner, he reportedly replied that it would be ready for use. Kondin stressed that she could not confirm whether he was a genuine police officer.

Two men sought for questioning

Kondin said her brother normally visited the house only about once a year. She was shocked after learning from media reports that his name had emerged in the investigation, particularly because they had previously discussed their sympathy for the missing siblings’ family.

She said Thong’s phone had since been switched off and urged him to contact the authorities if he was not involved.

Police were continuing efforts to locate Thong and Pong for questioning. Both remained persons of interest in the investigation, and neither had been charged or identified by police as responsible for a crime.