BANGKOK: Thai authorities have seized various assets worth millions of Thai baht held by “Mr T” or the “Malaysian Iceman”, who acted as a key middleman for international drug syndicates.
According to a source, the authorities not only made the move of confiscating assets under his name, they also seized assets held under his Thai wife’s and son’s names.
“Their assets (Mr T, his Thai wife and son) run into millions of Thai baht, with most of it located in Haadyai and other southern Thai provinces,” he said about the Malaysian man who was sought after by Thai drug enforcement authorities before his arrest recently.
Thai authorities suspect that Mr T was the key middleman who brokered deals and facilitated the smuggling of hundreds of kilograms of drugs into Malaysia to be re-exported to other countries.
The Johor-born suspect was nabbed at Haadyai Airport in April after a trip to northern Thailand, which the authorities alleged was to negotiate for another shipment of drugs for international syndicates.
Thai authorities said two Malaysian men who were arrested in Sadao in March last year with 282kg of “ice” (methamphetamine), told them during interrogation that the drugs belonged to Mr T.
The two drug couriers also claimed that Mr T had facilitated several other successful drug smuggling attempts into Malaysia, each over 100kg in consignment.
According to the source, the assets seized under Mr T’s name included cash in various currencies – baht, ringgit, Hong Kong dollars, Korean won, Indonesian rupiah, Swiss francs and US dollars.
The source said the seized assets included cars and motorbikes, deposits in local banks, lottery bonds, a condominium unit, plots of land and title deeds.
Mr T is currently under remand in a Bangkok prison while the authorities complete their probe into his alleged crimes.
