Frenchman wanted for drugs and money laundering arrested in Phuket
A Frenchman wanted for more than 30 offences in his home country was arrested in Phuket yesterday, April 9, after fleeing to Thailand to avoid prosecution.
Royal Thai Police instructed Phuket Provincial Immigration Office to locate the Frenchman, later identified as 50 year old Ani. French police were seeking his arrest over more than 30 offences linked to drug trafficking and money laundering.
Investigators said the Frenchman fled after he was caught smuggling a large quantity of cocaine from Dubai into France via Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Police also identified him as a senior member of a transnational crime gang, with a role in planning, directing, and controlling the group’s illegal operations.
Phuket immigration officers found that he had entered Thailand on a tourist visa and that his permission to stay had not yet expired.
Police later traced Ani to a hotel in Karon subdistrict, Mueang district, Phuket. Officers raided the hotel yesterday and arrested the Frenchman at the reception counter.
His visa and permission to stay in Thailand were revoked before arrangements were made to return the Frenchman to his home country for legal proceedings.
In a similar crackdown on foreign fugitives, the Central Investigation Bureau recently arrested a Chinese-born man holding Saint Kitts and Nevis nationality at a pool villa in Pattaya. The arrest followed a request from the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, which said the suspect was involved in operating 239 gambling websites.
Those websites targeted Chinese gamblers and handled more than 13 billion baht in circulation. The suspect was also reported to have close links to She Zhijiang, a gambling kingpin associated with illegal operations in Shwe Kokko, Myanmar.
Police said the suspect used a Saint Kitts and Nevis passport to avoid detection after entering Thailand. Officers later tracked him from a luxury condominium in Bangkok to the pool villa in Pattaya, where he was arrested.
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