A Japanese man has been arrested on drugs and weapons charges, and three alleged accomplices were detained for trying to bribe officers to release him.
Gang links: Yutaka Itakura is taken away by drug squad police after being arrested at a Ratchadaphisek department store.
Yutaka Itakura, 34, was allegedly caught with 2.2kg of crystal methamphetamine, a 9mm automatic gun and 24 rounds of ammunition in a sting operation at a department store on Ratchadaphisek Road.
The raid was part of a crackdown targeting drug pushers in the Sukhumvit and Silom areas.
The suspect offered 1.7 million baht to the arresting officers in exchange for his release, police said. Three other Japanese men later arrived at the scene and offered an additional one million baht in exchange for Mr Itakura’s release.
Mr Itakura was charged with possessing and selling illegal drugs, possessing an unregistered automatic gun and attempting to bribe police. His three associates were identified as Tsuneo Yoneda, 49, Ryohei Matsumoto, 52, and Tsutomo Akagi, 50.
Pol Lt Gen Rewat Klinkesorn, commissioner of the Narcotics Suppression Bureau, said Mr Itakura is suspected of having links with a drug-trafficking gang that hires Thai women to transport drugs abroad and also sells drugs in Sukhumvit and Silom.
He said some of the Japanese suspects have Thai wives whom the police want to track down and question as part of their investigation into the drug gang.
Pol Lt Gen Rewat said foreign drug traffickers have recently started targeting Thai women in the sex trade, luring the women into marrying them or becoming their girlfriends.
He said the couples then travel abroad and the men hide drugs in the women’s
luggage.
More than 200 Thai women are known to have been arrested on drug trafficking charges overseas, he said.