Julia Poppelbaum, 34, and Thomas Veit, 47, were arrested at about 2:30pm on Wednesday (Nov 16), Wichit Police reported yesterday.
The pair were taken into custody under arrest warrants issued by Phuket Provincial Court on Wednesday, police noted. The place of arrest was not reported.
The arrests traced back to February, when Petcharat Mankong reported to police that the car, a white Mitsubishi Pajero Sport, had been stolen, Wichit Police explained in their report.
Ms Petcharat explained to police that Poppelbaum had contacted her at 6pm on Feb 5 asking to rent the car for one month, from Feb 5 to March 5.
The price of B32,000 was agreed, with Poppelbaum making an initial payment of B9,000 and later transferring an additional B5,000. The remaining B23,000 was to be paid on the car’s return.
However, at about 8:45am on Feb 12 Ms Petcharat received a call from officers from the Office of the Narcotics Control Board explaining to her that the Mitsubishi Pajero had just been recorded as passing a checkpoint to enter Malaysia.
The officers suspected the car was being used in the transport of drugs, the officers said.
Ms Petcharat checked the GPS tracker fitted to the car and confirmed for herself that it was in Malaysia. She said she tried to contact the couple, but without success.
Police launched an investigation and later learned that the couple had recently returned to Thailand “and committed other offenses”, Wichit Police said in their report.
Warrants of arrest for the couple were sought, issued and served, with Poppelbaum and Veit both now facing charges of “theft by committing two or more offenses together”, the report confirmed.
The report made no mention of whether the car had been recovered, or any other charges the couple were facing.