Police believe body in barrel in reservoir is of abducted Korean man

Murder linked to drugs, two suspects identified

CHON BURI: Police have found a human body inside a 200 litre barrel filled with concrete dumped in a reservoir, and believe it could be that of a Korean man abducted by three Korean suspects in Bangkok last week.

Divers found the big black plastic barrel with the body inside at the bottom of Map Prachan reservoir in Bang Lamung district in Chon Buri on Saturday night.

Pol Maj Gen Noppasil Phoonsawat, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau (MPB), and other investigators said on Saturday night that the body could be that of Roh Eui Jong, 34, a Korean man reported missing since May 3. But police needed confirmation because all the victim’s fingers had been cut off, presumably to make his identification difficult, they added.

Mr Roh’s mother, who was in South Korea, sought help from the South Korean embassy in Bangkok on Tuesday to locate her son’s whereabouts after she received a phone call from a man using one of her son’s communications app accounts that day. The caller demanded 3 million baht, saying he would be killed if the ransom were not delivered by Wednesday. The man on the phone claimed the money was for illicit drugs belonging to him that her son had dumped into a river.

The embassy in Bangkok registered the complaint at Khlong Tan police station, leading the MPB to step in to work with Chon Buri police on the case.

A man in a light shirt believed to be Roh Eui Jong, 34, is seen in CCTV footage being guided by a suspect in Bangkok’s RCA area early on May 3.

Police tracked the call and found that it originated in Bang Lamung.

Mr Roh entered Thailand on April 30. Investigators did not reveal where he had travelled from.

His Thai girlfriend told police that the man hung out at a nightlife venue in the RCA clubbing district on May 2. In the next morning, he was taken away by two male Koreans.

Police checked CCTV footage and found the car was driven to a rented house in Bang Lamung on the afternoon of May 3. The house was located around three kilometres from the reservoir.

CCTV footage also showed the suspects switched vehicles by using a rented white pickup truck, and were then seeing buying a barrel at a plastic warehouse about one kilometre from the crime scene.

Shop owner Nittaya Chanprung told police a foreigner driving a white pickup truck bought a big plastic barrel, nylon ropes and scissors on May 3. The customer was calm and did not seem to be acting suspiciously, she said. The suspect was captured on her security camera and she handed over the record to the investigators.

Pol Maj Gen Noppasil said police knew the identity of the two abductors then believed responsible. One of them left the country on Thursday, he said, while the other was at large in Thailand.

He also said that the victim’s girlfriend, friend and relatives insisted that he had nothing to do with any narcotic business. The girlfriend also told police that the victim was not familiar with the suspects and they just met in RCA.

A male cousin and an elder sister of the victim arrived at Makkasan police station in Bangkok later on Sunday for DNA comparison.

At the station Pol Maj Gen Noppasil later said CCTV indicated that there were actually three South Korean suspects in the case.

They brought the victim by car to a rented house in Rom Klao area and then a condominium on Soi Sukhumvit 77 Road.

The car then left Bangkok for Chon Buri but the victim travelled with two suspects.

They arrived at another rented house in Map Prachan area of Pattaya. Then one suspect rented a pickup truck in the late morning of May 3. Two suspects then bought a big black barrel and ropes in the afternoon.

At about 5pm on May 4 the suspects left the house in the pickup truck and the car. They roamed Pattaya streets for about five hours.

At about 10pm on May 4 both vehicles arrived at the Map Prachan reservoir, with the pickup truck carrying the black barrel. At 10.43pm the pickup truck returned to the rented house without the barrel on its tray.

The suspects disconnected CCTV systems at both rented houses during their stay.

Pol Maj Gen Noppasil said information from immigration police showed that two suspects left the country while the other did not. He also said that the three suspects had criminal records in South Korea.

However, sources said all there suspects had escaped the kingdom – one for Myanmar, another for South Korea and the third for Cambodia. The victim’s digits were cut off to obstruct identification.

Roh Eui Jong, 34, is seen in an Immigration Bureau picture taken when he arrived in the country on April 30. (Photo: police)