Australian sentenced to DEATH in Thailand, Pattaya ex-pat. A Perth man and his Thai wife have been sentenced to death in Thailand for trying to smuggle half a tonne of crystal methamphetamine into Australia.
Luke Cook, 34, and Kanyarat Wechapitak, 40, were arrested at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport last December.
They were charged in relation to a 2015 plot to smuggle half a tonne of crystal methamphetamine worth an estimated $300 million into Thailand and then on to Australia.
A Thai court has sentenced the couple to death, (a Bangkok Jack Report) but that is expected to be commuted to life in prison, media reports on Wednesday said.
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman declined to comment specifically on Cook, but said the Australian government was providing consular assistance to an Australian in Thailand.
“Owing to our privacy obligations we will not provide further comment,” the spokeswoman said in a statement.
Cook, a father of two and member of the Hells Angels bikie gang, is accused of coordinating the movement of the drugs from China to Thailand on board a yacht.
Sea patrol
However the shipment of crystal meth, also known as ice, was dumped off the southeastern Thai province of Chonburi after being spotted by Thai authorities, News Corp reported.
About 50kg of the drug divided up into four sacks later washed ashore at Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong province in June 2015.
Authorities in Thailand claimed that Cook was paid $US10 million ($13.8 million) by the Hells Angels to buy and store the drugs for later shipment to Australia.
As part of their investigation, Thai police confiscated assets including luxury cars.
At the time of their arrest, Police Lieutenant General Sommai Kongwisaisuk of the Thai Narcotics Suppression Bureau said Cook was a member of the Hells Angels gang in Pattaya, a city 150 kilometres from Bangkok that is known for its booming sex industry and as a haven for international criminal networks.
Murder
Police claimed that Cook and his wife ran a boat rental business, Global Marine Solutions, and had ties with Sydney-based Hells Angels’ member and drugs identity Wayne Schneider, who was murdered in Thailand in November 2015.
Schneider was believed to have paid Cook the money to smuggle 500kg of crystal meth into Thailand so it could then be distributed elsewhere.
Cook, owner of the Piss Stop Bar in Pattaya, was convicted in 2016 of helping Australian kick-boxer and former Sydney businessman Antonio Bagnato flee Thailand after he murdered Schneider, a prominent figure of Sydney’s underworld.
Cook, who drove Bagnato in a private car to the Cambodian border after the killing, was convicted in a Thai court of aiding and abetting a crime and sentenced to three months jail, which was suspended for two years. – AAP with Lindsay Murdoch
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