Thai airport officials arrest Sri Lankan man with fake Malaysian passport

BANGKOK: A 45-year- old Sri Lankan man was arrested in Suvarnabhumi Airport for trying to board a flight to France using a fake Malaysian passport.

According to the airport’s immigration police commander Col Ploen Klinphayom, the incident happened yesterday when the man identified as Pirapu Tharmalingam was at the immigration counter at the international airport.

“He was about to board a Kuwait Airlines’ plane to fly to Paris via Kuwait City,” he told Bernama here yesterday, adding that investigations revealed the Sri Lankan man entered Thailand through Betong in Yala province, southern Thailand on Sept 13.

According to the suspect , he bought the fake passport from an agent in Kuala Lumpur. From Betong, the South Asian man whom the police confirmed was a first time traveller to Thailand with no previous criminal record, boarded a bus to Bangkok and lodged in a hotel in Sukhumvit area throughout his stay in Bangkok.

Ploen said, throughout this year his men had managed to arrest 45 suspects mainly from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Iraq, Iran and other countries for possession of counterfeit passport.

“For Sri Lankan suspects, we found that they usually used Malaysian and Indian fake passports because of their similar facial features,” he said.

Airport official made similar arrest several days ago involving a Sri Lankan man using a fake Indian passport, which prompted officials to heighten their surveillance.