Foreign passport forgers charged with hiding body in Bangkok

Three foreign men belonging to a suspected passport forgery ring were charged yesterday after police found them with drugs, guns and a dismembered body stashed in the freezer of a Bangkok building.

Bangkok’s police chief Sanit Mahathavorn said that they had determined the body was a “foreign man with blonde hair”.

Six pieces of body parts were wrapped in black plastic sheets and stored in a freezer on the ground floor of the five-storey shophouse in Sukhumvit Soi 56 in Phra Khanong district.

Two men, aged 33 and 66, were in possession of American passports while a third man, whose age has not been released, was found to have both British and U.S. identification.

A police officer was injured in the exchange.

After the arrest of the five suspects, police searched the shophouse and seized six handguns, fake passports, a printer, chemicals and methamphetamine.

Police haven’t confirmed the nationality and identity of the third suspect. Police are still trying to establish the dead woman’s identity and further investigation is underway.

He has not been formally charged but has been detained at a hospital, police said. One police officer was shot during the raid but remains in a stable condition, Sathien Witanamala, police deputy commander of the Phrakanong precinct in central Bangkok, told Reuters.

Guns, ammuntion, crystal meth and fake passports were also found in the building, it has been reported. The couple have not been been charged and are being treated as witnesses, police said.

A US Embassy spokesman said he was following the case but could not comment due to privacy concerns.

Pol Col Chanin said that all five people rounded up on Friday denied any knowledge of the dismembered body in the freezer.

Passports are known to be sold on to drug traffickers while others are suspected to have ended up in the hands of Islamist militants.