Australia-bound heroin packs sewn into Thai silk blouses

Thai flight attendant who made regular deliveries tells police he was unaware of contents

PHUKET – A Thai flight attendant said he was unaware that the silk blouses he had been hired to deliver to Australia had six kilogrammes of heroin in plastic packs sewn into them, according to police.

Pol Maj Gen Sinlert Sukhum, the Phuket police commander, said on Wednesday that 48 Thai silk blouses in two sacks were delivered from Chiang Khan district of Loei province to a house in tambon Sakhu of Thalang district in Phuket on April 30.

At the time no one was there to receive the delivery and police seized the sacks as they suspected an attempt to smuggle narcotics, he said.

On May 2 a flight attendant to whom the sacks were addressed told police that a Facebook user had hired him to deliver the blouses to Australia. The attendant used Facebook to advertise a personal delivery service aboard his flights.

The customer in question started using his service in March, the attendant told investigators. The most recent shipment was the third of its kind.

The attendant was hired to carry the 48 Thai silk blouses to Australia at 150 baht each, or 7,200 baht in total.

Police discovered that packs of heroin had been neatly sewn inside the 48 blouses, with the seized drugs weighing 6.2kg in total. Police said they believed the flight attendant was genuinely unaware of what the shipment contained.

Police learned that the sender in Thailand and the recipient in Australia were both Thai. The investigation is continuing.