From BBC

Thai police have issued arrest warrants for two American men who tried to post baby body parts to the United States.

The two men, Ryan McPherson and Daniel Tanner, have reportedly left for neighbouring Cambodia.

They were detained earlier but police released them after concluding that they had not broken laws, apart from violating customs rules.

The men said they bought the items, which were stolen from a Bangkok hospital, from a night market.

On Tuesday, the police said they had seized parcels containing a baby’s head, a baby’s foot sliced into three parts, an adult heart with a stab wound, and pieces of adult human skin with tattoos.

The packages were found by staff at a DHL depot when they X-rayed several packages labelled as toys and bound for Las Vegas.

Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok has since reported that the human remains were stolen last week from its forensic medicine museum.

‘New elements’

Mr McPherson and Mr Tanner were questioned over the weekend but were let them go.

Police now want to arrest them as “new elements” have emerged after their departure, said the head of Bangkok’s investigation bureau Sombat Milintachinda.

“Our evidence indicates that they either stole the body parts, or they bought them from other people,” he was quoted by the AP news agency as saying.

Mr McPherson and Mr Tanner are facing charges of theft, possession of stolen items, and falsely declaring items on shipping documents.

Thai authorities have asked Cambodian police and the FBI in the US to help them track down the men.

The BBC’s Jonathan Head in Bangkok says that according to details given by the police, the two men appear to have been part of a team that made notorious videos in the US a decade ago, showing homeless people fighting one another.

IMAGE: A tattoo expert and a policeman (L) point at one of the pictures of body parts found in parcels as they address reporters in Bangkok 17 November 2014

Among the items seized by the police were pieces of human skin with tattoos

For more on this story go to: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30093202

 

Related story:

Thailand police seek Americans over baby parts posted to US

From BBC

Thai police say they are seeking two US citizens over the suspected theft of body parts – including a baby’s head and an adult’s heart – from a hospital.

The men were questioned on Saturday after staff at a DHL depot in Bangkok discovered three parcels containing the human remains, bound for the US.

The men were freed after saying they had bought the items at a market to give to friends as a joke.

The Americans are now believed to have travelled to neighbouring Cambodia.

Police said that staff at a DHL depot in Bangkok were doing a routine check on several parcels labelled as toys when they made the discovery.

Deputy national police chief Ruangsak Jaritake told reporters the authorities had received information indicating that the body parts had been “stolen from one of the big hospitals” in Bangkok’s Thonburi neighbourhood.

“It is a famous hospital,” he said. “But we are still looking for clearer evidence.”

Police named one of the Americans as a controversial video maker, Ryan McPherson.

The BBC’s Jonathan Head in Bangkok says he became notorious for making violent exploitative videos a decade ago about homeless men, and was questioned by police then.

‘No grounds to prosecute’

Police in Bangkok say the parcels were bound for addresses in Las Vegas. One reportedly had a baby’s head, a baby’s foot sliced into three parts, an adult heart with a stab wound, and pieces of adult human skin with tattoos.

The police said they were also investigating a possible murder because of the stab marks.

The items were in five plastic containers filled with preserving fluid, packed into three packages. DHL staff discovered them when putting the boxes through an X-ray machine.

Police said the body parts appeared to have been removed and preserved by a medical professional.

The containers looked similar to those used to preserve corpses at Bangkok’s Siriraj Medical Museum, according to AFP news agency.

One of the two men who tried to post the items was questioned by Thai police for four hours on Saturday night in the presence of US embassy officials, before he was released, the Nation newspaper reports.

Police told reporters they had released the men as they had no grounds to prosecute them. The FBI in the US has been informed about the case.

In 2012 a Briton was arrested in Bangkok for possession of six foetuses wrapped in gold leaf. Police had been tipped off that the foetuses were being sold through a website advertising black magic.

IMAGE: Thai police officers show pictures of a tattooed human skin during a press conference at Bangpongpang police station in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, 17 Nov 2014

The packages contained pieces of tattooed adult human skin, in addition to the baby body parts

For more on this story go to: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30077720