Post date: Mar 10, 2014 12:4:13 PM
Thai police and Interpol investigate into fake passports used for buying tickets and boarding theMalaysia jetliner which disappeared over the weekend.
PATTAYA, THAILAND (MARCH 10, 2014) (REUTERS) - Thai Police and Interpol investigated on Monday (March 10) into the two fake passports used to purchase tickets in Pattaya, for the Malaysian Airlines flight that went missing.
Officials looked into two travel agencies - Sixstars Travel and Grand Horizon -- where two persons suspected of using fake passports tried to buy tickets.Sixstars eventually issued online tickets, after receiving copies of the passports, police said. They are still looking into the transaction with Grand Horizon, who had passed on the purchase to Sixstars.
Flight MH370 vanished from radar screens in the early hours of Saturday (March 8), about an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur, after climbing to a cruising altitude of 35,000 ft.
The passenger manifest issued by the airline included the names of two Europeans - AustrianChristian Kozel and Italian Luigi Maraldi - who were not on the plane. Their passports had been stolen in Thailand during the past two years.
But Thai police said Pattaya had no record of the stolen passports.
"We're still not sure where the passports had been stolen. There is no report to Pattaya police that these two passports were missing," said Pattaya Police Chief Supachai Puikaewcome.
Police have yet to pin down suspects.
"We still don't have any information on suspects, because they used the copy of the fake passports so they can be issued tickets," Supachai said.
He said they cannot confirm whether those carrying the fake passports are Asian.
"We have some development. Now we're gathering information and evidence," Supachai said.
Interpol confirmed on Sunday (March 9) at least two passengers used stolen passports and said it was checking whether others aboard had used false identity documents.
The disappearance of a Malaysian jetliner is an "unprecedented aviation mystery", a senior official said on Monday, with a massive air and sea search now in its third day failing to find any confirmed trace of the plane or the 239 people aboard.
Hopes for a breakthrough rose briefly when Vietnam scrambled helicopters to investigate a floating yellow object it was thought could have been a life raft. But the country's Civil Aviation Authority said on its website that the object turned out to be a "moss-covered cap of a cable reel".