Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Tue, 8 Sep 1992 10:00:45 -0400
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      LAOS: Top Thai police implicated in Laos cash heist

09/04

TOP THAI POLICE IMPLICATED IN LAOS CASH HEIST

    By Angus MacSwan
    BANGKOK, Sept 4, Reuter - Two million dollars goes a long way in Laos, one
of the world's poorest countries. All the way to Thailand in fact.
    That amount was stolen at Vientiane airport in July in what is probably the
largest heist in the history of sleepy Laos.
    Details are emerging only slowly of exactly what happened but it is now
clear it involved a major conspiracy between Lao bank employees and Thai police.
    Five senior Thai provincial officers have been implicated in the robbery,
police said in Bangkok on Thursday, announcing the latest development in a saga
that looks like it was dreamed up in Hollywood.
    According to various Thai press and police reports, the cash, in U.S.
currency, was flown into the airport by helicopter from Vietnam on July 28 and
was supposed to be deposited in the Lao National Bank.
    Bank employees assigned to take delivery of the money instead hijacked the
van at gunpoint and drove it to the Mekong River, where they escaped across the
border into Thailand.
    An investigation launched by the Thais turned out to be quite embarrassing.
    Police Major-General Sayan Seangsayan told Reuters on August 5 that four
Thai policemen had been arrested in connection with the robbery. He pledged to
get to the bottom of the case.
    On Thursday Police Director-General Sawat Amornwiwat said five more senior
officials from the north were also involved.
    They included Sayan.
    Interior Minister Pow Sarasin called the revelation a shame.
    Relations between Thailand and Laos have been steadily improving after years
of mutual suspicion, and Bangkok has been urging Thais to exploit trade and
business opportunities to the full.
    Nearly all the money has now been recovered and $1.85 million returned to
Lao authorities, Sawat said.
    The Lao ambassador to Thailand, Bounkeut Sangsomsak, journeyed up to Nong
Kai province for one handover ceremony.
    There is some confusion over who the money belongs to.
    Initial press reports said it was U.S. aid money. A U.S. embassy spokesman
said this was unlikely as Washington gives no bilateral cash aid to Laos -- and
if it did it would certainly not be helicoptered in from Vietnam.
    Later reports said the money belonged to the United Nations Development
Programme. A UNDP official in Vientiane, reached by telephone from Bangkok, said
it was not theirs although they would be glad to have it.
    A Lao Radio report on Sunday, seen in transcript in Bangkok on Wednesday,
refered to "the robbery of a Lao bank."
    It gave exhaustive details of which dignatories attended a handover ceremony
and mentioned a final element of farce.
    The Thais gave back almost $400,000 in the Thai currency, the baht. Lao
officials complained and the Thais conceded that the refund should be made in
U.S. dollars.
    The report shed little light on the other matters but finished by saying
that Thai authorities had pledged to continue searching for the rest of the cash
"and hand it all over to the Lao government."
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU