Down undercover: Aussie fugitive caught in Phuket hideaway over drug charge

Police arrested an Aussie man at a luxury accommodation in Phuket on August 10 after the foreigner fled a drug charge from his homeland to hide in Thailand.

Phuket Provincial Immigration Police today held a press conference to report the successful arrest of the Australian, Robert Wainwright. The arrest was made on Thursday, August 10 near a luxury pool villa in the Rawai sub-district, Meaung district, Phuket province.

Officers reported that the Australian authorities had recently executed Operation LESALAN, an investigative initiative aimed at the detection and apprehension of suspects in drug and firearm trafficking. However, some of the suspects, including Wainwright, managed to evade arrest.

After conducting a further investigation into runaway suspects, the Australian authorities discovered Wainwright was hiding in Thailand. Wainwright reportedly entered Thailand on a student visa.

To hide from the police, Wainwright avoided doing any financial transactions and let his Australian girlfriend do it for him. He also kept changing his accommodation to make it harder to track him down. Fortunately, eagle-eyed Thai police managed to trace him in the end.

Officers discovered Wainwright and his girlfriend were living in a luxury villa in the popular resort and monitored them closely. On August 10, the officers surrounded the villa and waited until the two left the premises.

Officers allowed them to travel out of the villa’s compound in their car before they pounced to make an arrest. The police did not report whether Wainwright’s girlfriend was apprehended or the next step of the legal process.

Several Australian national arrests in Thailand have been reported this year.

In June, Thai police arrested an Aussie couple who stole 2.5 million baht from a Chinese victim in Bangkok and hid from the arrest in Phuket.

In May, officers arrested an Australian man for causing damage to a van’s rear-view mirror following a row with a Thai driver.

More Aussie men were arrested in Phuket in March for their involvement in a brawl with foreign staff members at the Atlas Restaurant while another Australian man was arrested for stealing a car from the Phuket Airport in the same month. His escapade came to a screeching halt as he encountered police checkpoints during his journey.