Police detain driver linked to June 22 flight crew drug case

Police have tracked down a former drug convict who is alleged to have delivered a parcel, containing the drug-tainted tote bags, to TG cabin crew ‘Meena’ at her condominium in the Bang Na area on June 22.

Meena was arrested at Melbourne airport on June 25, when the Australian Border Force found the tote bags in her baggage during X-ray screening. The tote bags were found to be impregnated with ‘drip-dry’ heroin.

Pol Maj-Gen Thiradet Thumsutee, deputy commissioner of Metropolitan Police, said today that police have carefully examined CCTV footage from the Bang Na condominium and nearby areas and have managed to track down the owner of the car which stopped at the condo to deliver the parcel.

He said that the suspect had previously been sentenced to life for the possession and trafficking of 10,000 methamphetamine pills in 1997. He was, however, released in 2017 when his life sentence was commuted to 20 years.

The suspect allegedly told police investigators during questioning that he drove the dark-grey car to deliver a parcel to the Bang Na condominium, together with his foreign employer who had hired him to make the delivery.

He further claimed that, before this delivery, he had dropped another parcel to a woman in the Soi Sua Yai area in Bangkok before returning to Ayutthaya province.

Thiradet also said that investigators had discovered that ‘Meena’ was offered 3,400 baht to take the delivery of the parcel, with half of the amount paid as an advance payment and the rest to be transferred to her bank account on the day she flew from Bangkok to Melbourne.