Ya bah dealer dies in shoot-out

THALANG: Bunyat Tangman, 34, wanted by police for his involvement in ya bah trafficking, was found dead this morning in a rubber plantation near the Shell Gas Station on Thepkrasattri Rd, after a shoot-out the previous evening with undercover police. Pol Lt Col Wuttichai Khamphut, Deputy Superintendent of Thalang Police Station, in charge of investigations, said that police officers had tried to lure Banyat into a trap near Baan Laem Sai. The suspicious Banyat, however, turned and drove away on his motorbike when he saw the undercover officers waiting for him. As he drove away, he crashed the motorbike. Picking himself up, he ran into the nearby rubber plantation. The officers gave chase, said Col Wuttichai, and Banyat began shooting at them. They fired back. By this time it was dark and raining, so the officers gave up the chase. Banyat’s body was found this morning by a Burmese rubber worker, lying face up in a pool of blood. A .38 pistol lay nearby. Dr Sririrat Lerdsupakul, of the Thalang Hospital, told the Gazette, “The victim had been dead about five hours. He had been shot once in the chest.”