Thailand

Police bust alleged illegal surrogacy ring, Thai women allegedly gave birth for overseas buyers

Published

3 weeks ago

Sunday, February 7, 2021

Caitlin Ashworth

Police bust alleged illegal surrogacy ring, Thai women allegedly gave birth for overseas buyers | The Thaiger

Stock photo by free stocks

An alleged illegal transnational surrogacy ring, posed as a cleaning company, was busted by Thailand’s cybercrime police after surrogate mothers were unable to deliver the children to buyers overseas due to travel restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic, investigators say.

Officers from the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau raided 10 locations suspected of being involved in the underground transnational surrogacy network, arresting 3 alleged agents and 4 Thai women who are believed to be surrogate mothers.

Officers also found 2 infants, 6 months old and 8 months old, in the raids. The bureau partnered with the Department of Special Investigation, as well as other agencies including the US Embassy in Thailand, for the investigation.

Thai women were lured into the illegal surrogacy network through social media and were paid more than 500,000 baht each to bear children for parents overseas, according to the bureau’s commissioner Kornchai Klayklueng. By posing as a cleaning company, the surrogacy network managed to operate in Thailand for a number of years.

Thai women would travel to Cambodia for an embryo transfer and then return to Thailand where they would stay until they gave birth, Kornchai says. The babies would then be given to parents overseas.

The investigation was launched after a woman, believed to be a surrogate mother involved in the illegal network, gave birth to a premature baby with multiple health problems including a brain haemorrhage. Investigators say they discovered many other Thai women had travelled abroad for an embryo transfer.

The suspects face charges for violating the Protection of Children Born by Assisted Reproductive Technology in Medical Science Act and the Anti-Participation in Transnational Organised Crime Act.

Last year, another alleged illegal surrogacy ring was busted and a umber of Thai and Chinese nationals were arrested. The network allegedly used Thai women to carry babies for Chinese couples. A Thai doctor was also arrested on charges of human trafficking.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post

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News Categories: Crime Thailand

5 Comments

Baroness

Monday, February 8, 2021 at 12:11 am

What about the citizenship of the baby? How are the babies smuggled out of Thailand without the complicity of immigration police? How do you register the baby in a foreign country without the necessary official adoption documents? Maybe I am naive but, as we are more and more “digitized” and “tracked”, how can the kid be raised normally, get a passport, access to health care and education? Oh I forget he can become a “dreamer” in the US.

Reply
- Leo Z
  
  Monday, February 8, 2021 at 4:10 am
  
  Surrogacy is illegal in China. As the other linked article noted, a ring for Chinese clients was busted in 2020. Basically China exporting, among other things, crime as well.
  
  Reply
  - James Pate
    
    Monday, February 8, 2021 at 4:23 am
    
    Illegal in Cambodia, too. Cambodia banned surrogacy business shortly after Thailand. Last time I checked, it’s still unregulated in Laos.
    
    Reply
- James Pate
  
  Monday, February 8, 2021 at 4:52 am
  
  The “plan” would be for the birth mother to sign over any legal rights to the child upon birth to the “customers “, at least to the father, the biological parent (in most cases). Thus, no adoption. This business was totally unregulated in Thailand until 2014, when 3 high profile cases shocked the public: Baby Gammy case (Australian father was a convicted pedophile), Baby Carmen case (Father was US citizen but resident of Spain) and, the many cases of Mitsutoki Shigeta (All babies issued Japanese passports.) Would be no need to be a Dreamer if at least 1 of the legal (and, most likely, biological) parents is a US citizen. Have a look at what happened in 2014 and you’ll see how it used to be done, the public outrage that ensued and, how and why this industry is banned and IVF tightly regulated in Thailand. This is what happens when technology outpaces the law and the law has to run to catch up.
  
  Reply
- Amy Sukwan
  
  Friday, February 12, 2021 at 8:10 pm
  
  I hate to be racist here, but in a true surrogacy, the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg are implanted into the Thai woman, i.e. the surrogate, whose body then hosts the baby. So the said baby would come out looking like it was the biological child of the parents, who in most cases aren’t going to look Thai at all. So a white Australian couple, say, is going to have a white baby that looks like theirs at immigration checkpoints. Would these people need to grease a few fingers? Probably. But really can’t the say infertile wife just tell everybody including friends and family that she finally got pregnant and decided to give birth to her baby in Thailand? The story would work on a lot of people…until Covid border closures came along…
  
  Reply

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Caitlin Ashworth

Caitlin Ashworth is a writer from the United States who has lived in Thailand since 2018. She graduated from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and media studies in 2016. She was a reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette In Massachusetts. She also interned at the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia and Sarasota Herald-Tribune in Florida.

Crime

Gunman kills mayoral candidate, injures 4 other municipal candidates at funeral

Published

2 hours ago

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Caitlin Ashworth

Gunman kills mayoral candidate, injures 4 other municipal candidates at funeral | The Thaiger

PHOTO: Facebook/ ยงข่าวร้อน

A gunman shot and killed a woman running for mayor and wounded 4 others at a funeral in Ratchaburi, a province west of Bangkok near the Myanmar border. Police say they suspect the shooting was politically motivated. Out of the 4 people injured, 3 were running in the March 28 municipal election while another was the kamnan, a government official of a tambon, which is a sub district.

The gunman is still at large, but police say they suspect the shooter is Wanchart Niamraksa, a member of the Ratchaburi provincial administration organisation.

The gunman opened fire just as the kamnan of tambon Don Sai, Yingpan Kanket, was lighting candles and incense sticks under a Buddha image to start the ceremony, witnesses say. Shots were fired from behind the main Buddha image at the temple’s open prayer hall, witnesses say.

Bullets hit 5 people, including Yingpan who is in critical condition. Varaporn Niamraksa, who was running for mayor of the municipality, was shot and died at the hospital. Nakhon Wanpen, Somthawil Srirat and Monthien Jaitham, who are all running for the municipal council of tambon Don Sai, were shot.

Police found 2 spent .22 cartridges and a 11mm spent shell at the scene. The suspect faces charges of murder, attempted murder, carrying firearms and ammunition without permission and carrying them in public without a proper reason.

SOURCES: Nation Thailand | Bangkok Post

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Phuket

Police investigate reports of women’s underwear stolen from Phuket homes

Published

5 hours ago

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Caitlin Ashworth

Police investigate reports of women’s underwear stolen from Phuket homes | The Thaiger

Screenshot

Police in Phuket are looking for a suspect who residents say has been stealing women’s underwear. Surveillance camera footage from a resident’s home shows a teenager driving through a neighbourhood, then stopping and stealing ladies panties that were hanging up to dry.

One resident told Phuket News that numerous residents in Thalang’s Baan Lipon area have reported missing underwear.

“Recently neighbors have been reporting that many items of their underwear have been stolen. Many residents are worried about the man hovering around here trying to steal underwear.”

A man told the Phuket News that his wife’s underwear was stolen and he’s now worried about his family’s safety. Another resident says he’s also concerned.

“As a resident in this area, I am worried about the safety of the local residents. Underwear has been stolen, something else could happen as well.”

In a similar case back in October, a 46 year old man was arrested for allegedly breaking into homes in Ratchaburi and stealing women’s underwear. Police says they seized 70 pairs of panties.

SOURCE: Phuket News

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Crime

Suspect arrested in Hat Yai murder and rape of schoolgirl

Published

10 hours ago

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Ann Carter

Suspect arrested in Hat Yai murder and rape of schoolgirl | The Thaiger

PHOTO: Chiang Rai Times

The suspect of a schoolgirl’s disturbing rape and murder in Hat Yai is now under arrest. The alleged criminal, 49 year old Prathom Iadkhao, known as Bangmad Kongra, was already a convicted sex offender who spent 1 year in prison back in 2002. He was convicted of taking a young girl from her parents for lewd purposes in Songkhla.

Now, a top police officer in Songkhla province has given details of how the 15 year old girl on her motorbike was allegedly hit from behind by the suspect who then beat, robbed, raped and murdered her at around 12:30am last Saturday morning. Her body was found by police under her motorbike in a ditch in the middle of a local highway in Hat Yai.

Police tracked her last movements to a local petrol station where she filled her motorbike at 12:30 am approximately on Saturday morning. Prathom had pulled into the station just minutes before the girl arrived.

Prathom was arrested in the Kongra district of neighbouring Phattalung province, and was brought to the crime scene to stage a crime reenactment. Local residents were in tears with some being restrained by police from attacking the suspect.

Police say the suspect confessed to hitting the girl with his car, beating, raping, stealing and murdering her. His account matches the police’s description of what happened along with his DNA matching DNA found under the victim’s fingernails.

Prathom told police that when he saw the girl at the petrol station, he waited for her on the road and let her overtake him on her motorbike. Then, he rammed the girl’s motorbike from behind sending her into the ditch. The suspect told police he pummelled her 3 times in the stomach before raping her and stealing 1,300 baht from her bag.

He then allegedly used a tyre wrench from his car to hit the girl on the head 2 or 3 times to kill her. Then, he used the girl’s clothing to wipe off the semen from his body. He said he then put the motorbike on her body to make it look like a traffic accident.

Prathom has been charged with premeditated murder and rape of the girl as well as one count of theft.

SOURCE: Thai Examiner

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