Police have arrested a major drug dealer who has been on the run for more than four years, using several identity cards with different names to avoid arrest.
Pol Maj Gen Prayat Boonsri, deputy chief of the Region 5 Provincial Police, said at a press conference in Chiang Mai province that the suspect - Kittipan Eksuriyachok - was arrested on Thursday at MK restaurant inside Lotus department store, Talad Kham Thiang brach, in Muang district of Chiang Mai.
Mr Kittipan was detained under a warrant obtained by Thung Hua Chang police station in Lamphun province in 2011.
On July 7, 2011, Thung Hua Chang police in Lamphum arrested two men with 123 bars of heroin, weighing 43 kilogrammes, hidden in a false compartment of a pick-up truck at a checkpoint in Thung Hua Chang district.
The two men said they had been hired by Mr Kittipan to deliver the drug to clients in Bangkok.
Pol Maj Gen Prayat said Mr Kittipan is a son-in-law of Alepha, a major drug producer in neighbouring Myanmar. He was put in charge of three major drug networks in Thailand.
The leaders of the three drug networks have been arrested with large quantities of heroin.
Pol Maj Gen Prachuap Wongsuk, Region 5 Provincial Police chief investigator, said during his four years on the run Mr Kittipan had used many ID cards with different names. When arrested on Thursday, he was using an ID card with the name Khaiying sae Chuan of Nonthaburi's Pak Kret district.
Mr Kittipan said he obtained this ID card in Phuket, paying 40,000 baht to a broker. In Chiang Mai, he paid 35,000 baht for another ID card in the name of Bebae Laochi of Mae Hong Son's Pai district.
He admitted to having used these ID cards for different transactions to avoid being arrested.