Thread: Two Thais, Australian 'ran heroin ring in prison'

Two Thais, Australian 'ran heroin ring in prison'

Hammond, Indiana (Agencies)
Thailand has extradited two men and a woman to the United States to stand trial on charges of running an international drug smuggling ring from inside a Bangkok-area prison.
The Thai nationals - a man and a woman - and an Australian serving 26 years and nine months for heroin dealing have been extradited to Indiana state in America to face federal charges in an alleged heroin trafficking ring being run from Bang Kwang prison in Nonthaburi.

US officials said on Friday the two Thais were Suwanee Sriprasarn, supposedly the chief go-between of the drug gang on the outside, and Paisit Bencharit, a prisoner.

Also sent to America was Australian Mitchell Blake, alias Martin Garnett, who was serving a 40-year heroin smuggling term in Thai prison.

The arrest of an East Chicago man seven years ago led to the discovery of the clandestine Thai network, in which an Australian man and a Thai suspect bribed prison guards to get cell phones to sell the drugs via international mail, federal court records state.

"We always strive to take (drug busts) to the top of the ladder - 'chopping off the head of the snake', we call it. Those opportunities don't present themselves too often," said Don Rospond, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Northern Indiana office.

"When it actually comes to fruition like this, it's something to be proud of."

The three were indicted in May 2002 on charges of conspiring with an unnamed person to import heroin directly from Thailand to northwest Indiana.

The Thais appeared before a federal magistrate in Hammond, Indiana, on Friday, the US Drug Enforcement Administration said.

Royal Thai Immigration officials arrested Ms Suwanee close to the Cambodian border in September 2005 and arrested Bencharit in Bangkok in October that same year shortly after he had been released from prison in a May, 2005, amnesty.

They remained in Thai custody until they were surrendered to US marshals earlier this week.

A total of 1.25 kilogrammes (more than two and a half pounds) of 90 per cent pure heroin, with a street value of more than $1 million, was seized over the course of the investigation, the DEA said.

HOW THE CASE WENT DOWN:

Court paperwork alleges Jason Burke, of East Chicago, bought 200 grammes of heroin from the Thai organisation in November 2000 for about $80,000, but he still owed $70,000 two months later.

Burke received a two-year prison sentence in exchange for cooperating with authorities. After Burke's bust, a DEA agent contacted Blake and arranged a "sample" delivery of 10 grammes of heroin to Crown Point.

In April 2001, the agent traveled to Thailand, where Ms Suwanee allegedly took the agent to the Bang Kwang Central Prison, where Blake and Bencharit coordinated the operation from their cells, court records allege.

"(Bencharit) assured the undercover agent that despite the fact that he and (Blake) were inmates of the Bang Kwang prison, they would have no problem acquiring and distributing heroin," the indictment states. "(They) conduct their heroin distribution business through the use of cellular telephones, a privilege that costs them approximately $450 a month in payments to their Thai jailors."

Ms Suwanee, who was Blake's girl friend, coordinated the mailings of money and drugs outside the prison.