PHUKET - Two male foreigners who escaped from Sakhu police station in Phuket's Thalang district on Saturday morning have been recaptured, police said.
The men had been arrested and were under interrogation for carrying fake Portuguese passports.
Pol Maj Gen Teerapol Thipcharoen, the Phuket police chief, said at a news conference on Sunday that the two -- identified as Raj Kumar and Sandeep Singh -- were re-arrested on Saturday night at the Otop market on Rat-uthit Road.
The men allegedly admitted they are Indian nationals.
On May 18, the two men were attempting to fly from Phuket to Toronto, Canada via Seoul, South Korea when they were stopped by South Korean immigration officers for holding forged Portuguese passports. On May 20, they were sent back to Phuket.
At the Phuket airport, they were arrested by immigration police and handed over to Sakhu police investigators for legal proceedings.
At Sakhu police station, while waiting to be taken to the provincial court where police would seek permission to detain them, the two asked to go to the toilet and fled from behind the station.
The police launched a manhunt, and learned that the suspects took a taxi from a coffee shop in Soi Naiyang 16 to Patong Beach. After examining the footage of security cameras in the area, the police discovered them eating at the Otop market. They were re-arrested at 11pm on Saturday.
Pol Maj Gen Teerapol said the two admitted to being Indian nationals who had travelled to Thailand in March with the intention of reaching Canada to take jobs.
Once in Thailand, they managed to obtain the forged passports, and booked air tickets to Canada. They said they used the fake Portugese passports because it was difficult for them to enter Canada with Indian passports.
They said they had each paid 2 million rupees, or about 1 million baht, to secure a job in Canada.
The two were initially charged with using fake documents and escaping police custody.
Pol Maj Gen Teerapol said a committee would be set up to investigate the Sakhu police for neglect of duty after the suspects escaped their custody.
The immigration police would also be directed to seek the passport forgers, he said.