[butterflyblonde]

BANGKOK (AFP): -- Thai police have arrested a Briton, his Thai wife and
two Hong Kong men in connection with a seizure of 40 kilograms (88
pounds) of heroin.

The Hong Kong residents, Chung Oi Fung, 42, and Leung Pak Lun, 21, were
arrested late Friday in front of a hotel in the popular Thai resort
island of Phuket.

The Hong Kong men were carrying two pieces of luggage containing 100
bars of pure heroin estimated at 35 million baht (875,000 dollars).

Police later arrested Briton Ian James Newton, 49, and his Thai wife
Sungwan Newton, 38, who were waiting to receive the heroin from the
Hong Kong men at the hotel.

"The suspects confessed to possession of heroin and drug trafficking,
which could earn them a death sentence" if convicted, Colonel Chatree
Paisalsilp of Thailand's Narcotics Suppression Bureau Police told AFP.

He said the four were part of an international drug trafficking gang
that authorities from Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway and the
United States had cooperated in tracking for three months.

--AFP 2005-11-05