At 9am today, Phuket Police Major General Ong-Art Pewreungnon, Kamala Police investigating team, officers from the Russian Embassy in Bangkok, two cousins of the missing couple, and a Russian translator, came to open the missing couples' luxury house in Kamala.
Upon entering the property, they found nothing suspicious, with no items appeared to have been stolen. The police investigators collected fingerprints from inside the house, and also took DNA from the missing couples' cousins to assist with further investigation.
Russian citizen Alexei Slabinskiy came to Phuket in April 2013 together with his girlfriend Yana Strizheus. The 39-old finance broker told friends and family that he was headed to Thailand for a holiday, and to learn Thai.
But their romantic life in Kamala may have turned into a nightmare on March 7 this year.
The Russian couple called their relatives claiming that they were in trouble in Phuket, and urgently needed USD100,000 to solve some unexpected problems. After the call, Aleksei’s and Yana’s cell phones went silent, and their concerned families raised the alarm.
Then on March 13, Yana called her sister in Russia and told her that she had been kidnapped.
“If I don’t arrive back in [the Russian city of] Vladivostok tomorrow [March 14], that means I’m already dead,” her sister quoted Yana as saying in a whisper.
According to the sister, the conversation lasted for only 30 seconds, and after that Yana’s phone went dead again.
If anyone has any information about Alexei and Yana, please contact Royal Thai Police, email alex-yana-lost@mail.com or call:
Andrei Smirnov: +66 82 277 3502 (English & Russian)
Tatiana Novoselova: +7 908 442 26 48 (Russian)
Dmitriy Voronov: +7 985 997 46 25 (Russian)
Additional reporting by Anton Makhrov.
http://www.thephuketnews.com/russian-couple-missing-feared-kidnapped-on-phuket-45152.php