Love snares fugitive suspect who visited wife in jail

Love snares fugitive suspect who visited wife in jail

Drugs fugitive Akarapakorn Ngamboonrid after his arrest on Thursday while visiting his wife at the Correctional Institute for Women in Muang district, Songkhla province. (Photo by Assawin Pakkawan)
Drugs fugitive Akarapakorn Ngamboonrid after his arrest on Thursday while visiting his wife at the Correctional Institute for Women in Muang district, Songkhla province. (Photo by Assawin Pakkawan)

SONGKHLA: Their life torn apart by drugs, love drew them back together - and put both behind bars.

Akarapakorn Ngamboonrid was captured by police on Thursday while visiting his wife, Suchada Ruengsunk, an inmate at the Correctional Institute for Women in Muang district.

Hat Yai police station chief Kittichai Sunkthaworn said the 32-year-old man was on the wanted list, named in an arrest warrant for selling drugs and unlicensed possession of a firearm.

Police raided his house in Hat Yai district on May 10 and found 30-year-old Suchada there - along  with two bags of crystal methamphetamine totalling six grammes, three methamphetamine pills, four pistols and a number of bullets. She was sent to the prison for women.

Mr Akarapakorn, the main target of the crackdown, was not there at the time.

Pol Col Kittichai said police had asked Suchada to make several phone calls asking him to surrender, but her husband eventually turned off his phone for good. (continued below)

Police made Suchada Ruengsunk phone her fugitive husband, Akarapakorn Ngamboonrid, from prison on May 10 and try to persuade him to surrender. He came to visit her instead, and was arrested. (File photo by Assawin Pakkawan)

Mr Akarapakorn said on Thursday he was out picking their children up from school when his home was raided and his wife arrested. When he saw police outside his house he made a quick U-turn and went into hiding.

But love would not let the pair be parted.

Mr Akarapakorn showed up at the women's prison on Thursday to see his loved one. And that led to his arrest by police.

"I felt sorry for my wife. She was crying while begging me to surrender over the phone," he recalled. "But I was afraid of being arrested.

"I love my wife and I could not leave her."

And it was not the first time he had been to see her. He admitted he had been visiting his wife twice a week since she was imprisoned.

No details were available of how long Suchada is to stay in prison, or when she was sent there from the police station. Only that she was clearly denied bail.

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