Paisarn Chuanjit, deputy director-general of the Customs Department, said officials at the airport spotted a suspicious-looking man wearing what looked like a monk’s robe.
They asked the man, identified later as Nguyen Van Thiet, to inspect his luggage using an X-ray machine.
They found a total of 2,300 grammes of ya ice in plastic bags wrapped in carbon paper hidden inside the luggage.
Mr Nguyen claimed he was a monk travelling from the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen to Thailand for a pilgrimage. Before he boarded China Southern Airlines flight CZ6093, a Vietnamese woman asked him if he would take some luggage to another Vietnamese person in Phuket. He said he woman told him an unidentified person would meet him at Phuket airport and take him to the luggage’s recipient.
Mr Nguyen did not have a monk identification card and had arrived in Thailand on a tourist visa, Mr Paisarn said.
Mr Nguyen was charged with possessing a category one drug and carrying it through Thailand for sale without permission.
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