Pakistani national Muhammad Athar Butt (R) is escorted out of the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) building by Thai policemen in Bangkok on December 2, 2010. – AFP
Posted on 12/02/2010 4:53:19 AM PST by csvset
BANGKOK: Two Pakistanis and a Thai woman arrested on suspicion of making fake passports for al Qaeda linked groups were part of criminal networks tied to “many terrorist attacks”, Thai police said Thursday.
The arrests in Thailand formed part of an international operation to stamp out a huge cell that has been linked to the 2008 attacks in Mumbai and the Madrid train bombings in 2004.
Pakistanis Muhammad Athar Butt, 39, and Zeeshan Ehsan Butt, 29, and Thai national Sirikanlaya Kijbumrung, 25, were arrested in Thailand on Tuesday as they attempted to flee into Laos.
“They are suspected of being part of a transnational criminal group, linked with terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba and involved with many terrorist attacks in Spain and European Union countries,” a statement by Thai police said.
The Thai raids were coordinated with Spanish police, who arrested six Pakistanis and a Nigerian in raids in and around Barcelona, which has a large Pakistani community, late on Tuesday.
Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation, working alongside authorities in Spain, found criminal networks in South Asia, specifically Pakistan and Bangladesh, had used Thailand as a base for document forgery.
“These are linked with terrorist groups, credit fraud, human trafficking and arms traders, which use those forged passports to enter third countries,”the statement continued.
Police seized forged passports, immigration documents, faked rubber stamps, computers, mobile phones, passport photos, UK driving licences and other counterfeiting equipment.
Special branch police chief lieutenant general Tritos Ronritthiwichai told reporters the three suspects were charged with passport and document forgery, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
“It is time for Thailand to arrest, eliminate and push out these criminals from our country because they are not welcome here,” he said.
Operation Kampai “neutralised a vast cell that helped provide passports for al Qaeda”, according to a statement by the Spanish interior ministry on Wednesday. – AFP
Pakistani national Muhammad Athar Butt (R) is escorted out of the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) building by Thai policemen in Bangkok on December 2, 2010. – AFP
Terror network arrest ping
Eric Holder is already on the line demanding that they be Mirandized. “Human rights for terrorists! Let’s be nice and they will like us better.”
I wonder if Thailand has an equivalent to a “federal POUND ME IN THE ASS prison” ?
I don’t want to know.
I missed this one.
Thank you for the ping csvset.
MADRID: Spanish and Thai police investigating a gang that supplied forged passports to al-Qaeda-linked groups have found new evidence of links to Sri Lanka's defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, Spanish authorities say.
Spanish and Thai police are analysing material seized late on Tuesday in a joint operation in which 10 people - eight Pakistanis, a Nigerian and a Thai national - were arrested in the two countries, Spain's interior ministry said yesterday in a statement.
The 10 are suspected of providing forged passports to organisations linked to al-Qaeda, including the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, accused of plotting the attacks in Mumbai that killed 174 people in November 2008, as well as to the Tamil Tigers.
Police seized forged passports, immigration documents, faked rubber stamps, computers, mobile phones, passport photos, British driving licences and sophisticated counterfeiting equipment in the swoop named Operation Kampai.
Spanish police experts "have travelled to Thailand and are working with Thailand's Department of Special Investigation to analyse the numerous documents seized from the cell'', the Interior Ministry said yesterday.
"An initial examination of photographs seized has turned up evidence of the membership of some members of the terrorist organisation the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam."
The LTTE "has perpetrated bloody attacks, many of them by suicides, such as that which killed the former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
"Many of its members were based in Western countries, where they obtained financial assistance for the organisation through extortion and drug trafficking," it said. (AFP)
AQ, LET and Tamil Tigers — that’s really interesting.
Any more updates, please let me know csvset.
Bang Kwang Central Prison. One of the most notorious prisons in the world....
I looked that place up. It sounds like a hell hole.
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