Bangkok, Thailand
CNN
—
Last Thursday, Thai investigative police raided a apartment within the suburbs of Bangkok – the hideout of an alleged drug smuggler who had been on the run for months.
The man, who glided by the identify Jimin Seong, was described to police as a “good looking Korean man,” with wavy hair and clean pores and skin.
But appearances could be deceiving.
The suspect’s actual identify is Saharat Sawanjaeng, police mentioned in a information launch on Friday. The 25-year-old, a Thai nationwide and Bangkok resident, had tried to reinvent himself as a “Korean man” by altering his identify, his haircut and present process a number of plastic surgical procedure procedures “until his face had completely changed,” mentioned the discharge.
Before and after photographs offered by the police present a dramatically totally different look, with earlier photographs bearing little instant resemblance to the person pictured afterward.
Saharat has been wished since final yr for allegedly importing greater than 2,500 grams and 290 tablets of MDMA, generally recognized as ecstasy or molly, into Thailand. He is allegedly a main supply of the drug spreading in Bangkok and the capital metropolis’s surrounding space, mentioned the discharge.
However, he had seemingly vanished – till police obtained rumors of the medicine being traced again to a Korean dealer, prompting their investigation.
After his arrest, Saharat allegedly confessed to having “worldwide connections,” sourcing medicine from the darkish internet and making transactions by means of Bitcoin, mentioned the discharge.
He spoke “very little Korean,” however wished to stay in South Korea as a result of he was “bored” of life in Thailand, he reportedly informed police.
Photos of the raid present Saharat surrounded by police within the residence earlier than being led away along with his arms restrained. He is being charged with importing and illegally distributing a class 1 drug into Thailand – each offenses carrying a most sentence of life imprisonment.
His actions “impacted national security and the general public’s safety” by inflicting the drug to develop into “widespread in public,” the discharge added.
Like most of Southeast Asia, Thailand has historically had strict legal guidelines in opposition to drug use and trafficking – however it has taken a number of steps in stress-free guidelines lately.
One main authorized modification in 2017 modified the utmost punishment for promoting medicine from the loss of life penalty to life imprisonment. A extra sweeping set of amendments got here in 2021 to emphasise prevention and remedy over punishment for small-scale drug customers.
Most notably, Thailand grew to become the primary nation in Asia to decriminalize hashish final yr, with hashish cafes and smoke retailers shortly popping up throughout the nation.