Police in New Zealand say a kidnapped Thai woman who died after jumping, bound and gagged, out of the boot of a moving car probably involved with an Asian drug-trafficking gang.
The New Zealand Herald reported on Thursday that Jindarat Prutsiriporn, 50, died at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland around 11pm Wednesday (5pm Bangkok time) 22 hours after being found lying bleeding and unconscious in the middle of Huia Rd in southern Auckland, her hands and feet tied with strips of fabric and a man's tie wound tightly around her neck.
Jindarat previously served two-and-a-half years in a New Zealand prison, from 2011, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to import a chemical used to manufacture methamphetamines, along with other drug offences. Her death is being investigated as a homicide, with an Asian drug gang suspected to be behind her abduction and death, the paper reported.
Jindarat Prutsiriporn (Facebook page photo)
Another Thai -- Juthamat Wakely, who was then 45 - and her husband George Wakely, also were arrested, charged and convicted of drug offences in the incident which saw her jailed.
Auckland police also seized more than 70 grammes of methamphetamines and marijuana from a Hawkes Bay property. The Thai woman was sentenced to eight months house arrest while her husband did nine months in prison.
Auckland police are now trying to piece together how Jindarat ended up in the boot of a late-model silver sedan and who put her there.
Investigators said she used a metal rod to jemmy open the boot and threw herself out without the driver knowing.
"The fact that she fought to escape from the boot of a moving car tells me that she probably knew where she was going and what was going to happen to her," criminology professor Greg Newbold told the paper. "Whoever did this must have been desperate because the chance of getting caught is very high."
The Herald reported that the death has shocked the local Thai community.
"We cannot believe that such things can happen in the Thai community here in Auckland," Maneeka Campbell, president of Thai Culture New Zealand Society, told the paper.
Ms Campbell said she did not know the woman and she did not attend the local Buddhist temple, but was believed to be connected with a restaurant in Ponsonby.
It was also reported that the dead woman had a distinctive tattoo - a blue dolphin.