People smuggler believed to have booked tickets
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Iranian pair who used stolen passports believed to have been seeking a new life overseas
Two passengers who triggered an international terrorism probe after a Malaysian passenger jet went missing now appear to have been young Iranian migrants seeking a new life overseas, officials said yesterday.
The case of the pair, who traveled with stolen passports, has focused attention on the murky world of people smuggling, particularly in Southeast Asia, long renowned as a hub of illegal migration and human trafficking.
Interpol said the men were believed to have traveled to Kuala Lumpur via Doha using Iranian passports under the names of Delavar Seyed Mohammad Reza, 29, and Pouri Nour Mohammadi, 18. They then switched to stolen Austrian and Italian passports to board Beijing-bound flight MH370, which vanished last Saturday with 239 people, including 154 Chinese, on board.
Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said it appeared increasingly certain the two “were probably not terrorists.”
“The interest seems to be dying down because they might just be people who were being smuggled or trafficked,” he told reporters.
But he said there was concern that more than a billion times each year there were people crossing borders or boarding planes without having passports screened against Interpol’s database.
Thai police said a suspected Iranian people smuggler had booked tickets for the two men through travel agencies in Pattaya, a seedy seaside city renowned for its flourishing sex industry.
The man, named as “Mr Ali,” reserved the seats under the names of two Europeans whose passports were stolen in the kingdom.
“We believe that these two passports were stolen by a human smuggling gang who send people to work in third countries, especially European countries,” Police Lieutenant General Panya Maman told reporters. He said “Mr Ali” was believed to live in Malaysia and has links to a gang specializing in smuggling Middle Eastern people to Europe via third countries. The ring has connections in Pattaya and the Thai resort island of Phuket.
He estimated that 2,000 passports were lost or stolen in Thailand each year.
Iran has offered its assistance with the Malaysian investigation.
“We are offering our cooperation to obtain more information,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said, pledging that Tehran would provide “any information on the Iranians and their status as soon as it is available.”
“Mr Ali” made the bookings by phone through Pattaya-based Grand Horizon Travel on March 1, asking for the two cheapest tickets to Europe, Pattaya police chief Colonel Supachai Phuykaeokam said.
A few days later, Grand Horizon — a sub-agent — asked another travel agency, Six Star, to issue e-tickets at his request.
A friend of Ali’s paid for the tickets in cash at the office of Grand Horizon in Pattaya, Supachai said.
Both agencies declined to comment.
The flights were booked under the names of Luigi Maraldi, an Italian, and Austrian Christian Kozel — but neither European boarded the Malaysia Airlines plane which vanished without a trace over the South China Sea on Saturday.
The flight booked in Kozel’s name was from Kuala Lumpur to Frankfurt via Beijing and Amsterdam, while the final destination for the Maraldi ticket was Copenhagen.
Maraldi has said his passport was stolen when he rented a motorbike in Phuket in July 2013.
He told police he left the passport with a Thai woman looking after the shop, but when he returned she had given it to somebody else.
Kozel also reported his passport missing in Phuket in March 2012.
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