PHUKET: Police on Sunday seized passports and money from the rented villa of an Indian man shot dead on Friday night in a hunt for clues about his killers.
Investigators from Provincial Police Region 8 and the Phuket Provincial Office searched the house rented by Jimi "Slice" Sandhu, 32, at Rawai beach in Muang district.
Police said they seized two additional passports in the dead man's name, along with two safes — one of them empty and the other containing 700,000 baht in cash.
The villa near the Beachfront Hotel Phuket complex was cordoned off after Sandhu was killed in a car park there around 10.30pm on Friday. Hotel staff alerted police on Saturday morning after discovering the body. It was not immediately clear why the sound of the gunshots did not prompt an earlier investigation.
Police found a passport bearing the name of a Canadian of Indian descent, Mandeep Singh, along with a driver's licence on the body. But the Vancouver Sun, citing several sources, said his real name was Jimi Sandhu, an Indian national deported from Canada.
Spent cartridges from a .38 handgun were sent to the Police Forensic Science offices in Surat Thani and Songkhla provinces to try to trace the DNA of the shooters.
Police believe the murder was due to a conflict over an illegal business.
Pol Lt Gen Amhon Buarabporn, the Provincial Police Region 8 chief, on Sunday gave more details on the Indian's travel record, saying he travelled to Phuket from Malaysia on Jan 27 on a private jet.
National Police chief Pol Gen Suwat Jangyodsuk plans to travel to Phuket on Monday to question investigators and try to shed more light on the case, according to Manager Online.
A staff member at the Beachfront Hotel Phuket who requested anonymity said the rented villa where the victim stayed was not on the hotel grounds, but on adjacent land.