Police are coordinating with Interpol to seek the arrest of two foreign men suspected of killing a Myanmar businessman in a luxury apartment in Bangkok.
The two men — who turned out to be Cameroonian nationals and not Scots as earlier reported — fled to Singapore with 5 million baht of the dead man’s money, investigators said on Thursday.
Police identified the two suspects as Robinson Saha, alias “William”, 32, and Viscio Delord Mamgaing Kam, or “John”, 36, both from Cameroon.
The pair entered Thailand as tourists and were staying at an apartment in the Thung Mahamek area of Sathon district.
They were later seen leaving an apartment in the Sukhumvit area where a Myanmar businessman in his 50s was found dead in the early hours of Wednesday. They returned to their apartment in Thung Mahamek and called a taxi to Don Mueang airport to board a flight to Singapore at about 5am on Wednesday.
The businessman was found lying on the floor with bloody injuries to his face, ears and head in the room on the 23rd floor of a condominium building on Sukhumvit Soi 4 in Klong Toey district when police arrived after being alerted about 1.30am.
Police are coordinating with embassy officials to seek an Interpol notice for the arrest of the two suspects, said a source.
The sole witness, who claimed to be the foster mother of the slain man, told police through an interpreter that the assailants strangled her until she passed out, according to Pol Maj Gen Noppasil Phoonsawat, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau.
A police investigation and a review of security video showed there were four people in the apartment between 10.22pm and 10.33pm on Tuesday. They were the victim, the witness and the two suspects, earlier identified by the witness as John and William.
The video also showed the witness getting out of an elevator at 11pm on Wednesday to alert a security guard, who then went to the room to find the Myanmar man slain.
When police arrived on the scene they found two travel bags — one containing documents of the victim and the other containing a cloth bag and some pink chemical powder used to make "black money". There was also a paper bag containing bundles of black paper like banknotes.
The witness reportedly told police that the Myanmar man was a frequent visitor to Thailand, having recorded some 52 trips between Bangkok and Yangon and between Bangkok and Hanoi.
Police are making further checks of the victim’s business activities and seeking more of his personal details from the Myanmar embassy.
Investigators found that the victim had been staying in the apartment since Feb 7, and that the witness was not his relative.
Police sent the woman to hospital for a check-up to verify her claim that she had been assaulted and knocked unconscious. They also plan to double-check her testimony for reliability.