People
stand beside the arrival board showing the missing Malaysia Airlines
Boeing
777-200 plane (on top and in red) at Beijing Airport on March 8, 2014
(AFP/File, Mark Ralston)
|
Bangkok —
Thai police said Sunday they were investigating a "passport ring" as
details emerged of bookings made in Thailand with stolen European passports for
the vanished Malaysia Airlines flight.
Two
European names -- Christian Kozel, an Austrian, and Luigi Maraldi of Italy --
were listed on the passenger manifest of the flight MH370, but neither man
boarded the plane, officials said.
Both had
their passports stolen in Thailand over the past two years.
Malaysia
has launched a terror probe investigating the suspect passengers and the United
States has sent in the FBI to assist.
Flight
information seen by AFP shows that tickets were booked in Maraldi and Kozel's
names on March 6, 2014, and issued in the Thai city of Pattaya, a popular beach
resort south of the capital Bangkok.
The
e-ticket numbers for their flights are consecutive and both were paid for in
Thai baht.
Each ticket
cost THB 20,215 (US$625).
Kozel was
booked to travel from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on the Malaysia Airlines Boeing
777, then on to Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
Maraldi was
booked on the same flights until Amsterdam, where he was to continue to
Copenhagen.
Interpol
confirmed that "at least two passports" recorded in its Stolen and
Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database were used by passengers on board the
flight, which was carrying 239 people.
"The
Austrian and Italian passports were added to Interpol's SLTD database after
their theft in Thailand in 2012 and 2013 respectively," it said in a
statement.
A senior
Thai police official told AFP that authorities were probing a passport racket
on the resort island of Phuket, where Maraldi's passport was stolen.
"A
police team combined with local police and immigration are working to track
down a passport ring," southern police commander Panya Mamen said.
A district
official in Phuket said that Maraldi had presented himself to police there on
Sunday.
"An
Italian tourist, Luigi Maraldi, has met southern police commander today in
Phuket to say he was not on the plane and his passport had been stolen since
last year," district police lieutenant colonel Akanit Danpitaksart told
AFP.
He said
they had no information on Kozel's passport but Austrian foreign ministry
spokesman, Martin Weiss, said Sunday that it had been stolen on a flight from
Phuket to Bangkok.
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