Pakistani held in Bangkok for supplying fake passports to criminal syndicates, terrorist groups

Bangkok: In yet another incident, the interrogation of three foreigners arrested in connection with criminal activities from a residential area here by the Royal Metropolitan Police of Thailand has led them to a Pakistani fake documents racketeer, who is currently serving a jail sentence in Thailand.

However, it is not the first time that a Pakistani has been linked to the supply of fake passports to the criminal syndicates and terrorist groups, including al Qaeda. In 2014 and 2012, many Pakistanis were arrested by the Thai police in this connection.

Police, who have recently arrested the three foreigners following a tip-off that they were involved in criminal activities, reportedly seized a "human" body from a freezer, 12 fake passports of - the US, France, the UK and Belgium as well as large quantities of chemicals, including urea, gallons of sulphuric acid, numerous bottled of acetone, calcium carbide, concentrated nitric acid and potassium chloride - from the house they were living in.

Police suspected that the chemicals were to be used to prepare explosives.

In the course of interrogation, said police, the accused purportedly disclosed that the fake documents were provided to them by Babu Rafiq, the Pakistani fake documents racketeer serving a sentence in Thai.

Babu Rafiq, alias, Abdul Kanni, was arrested by the Thai police in April last on the charges of selling fake passports to transnational criminals and terrorists for more than two decades.

In 2014, they had arrested two Pakistanis - Shahzad Nazeer Butt and Khawaja Rizwan Haleem - for allegedly being involved in a fake passport racket.Further in 2012, two Pakistanis and a Thai woman were arrested on the suspicion of making false passports for al Qaeda-linked groups.