A body stuffed into a suitcase was found in the Khlong Ong Ang canal on Sunday, and police have the dead man was likely a drug mule.
55 packages weighing between 10 and 50 grams of crystal methamphetamine were found wrapped in plastic bags in the body’s stomach, with a number of them reportedly burst, reports the Bangkok Post.
Initial forensics suggest that the ruptured bags lead to the man’s death by acute drug intoxication.
Such findings indicate the man had been intending to smuggle the crystal meth using the ‘body packing’ technique, whereby the drug is swallowed in small packages in order to escape detection. It’s a very dangerous practice that can cause certain death if any of the packages rupture.
Pol Maj Gen Pornchai Suthirakhun, chief of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Police General Hospital said that the dead man’s paymasters, likely international drug traffickers, may have disposed of the man’s body in the canal following his death in an effort to conceal their operation.
The nationality of the victim has not yet been confirmed although initial reports suggest that he was non-Thai and likely of South Asian – probably Indian – descent, from clues garnered from other items found in the disposed-of suitcase.
When the body was first found, it was thought that the man had been murdered thanks to multiple wounds found on his body, thought to have come from being hit by a hard object. It’s now believed, however, that the wounds were simply from animal teeth and nails, none of which would have been fatal.
Featured image is of a rock of crystal meth
