The crew of a cargo plane loaded with weapons from North Korea was ordered yesterday to remain in a Thai prison for 12 more days, as authorities request more time to investigate the plane’s cargo and final destination.
The five crew members — four from Kazakhstan and one from Belarus — insist their destination was Sri Lanka and not Iran, contradicting a report from arms trafficking experts.
The crew also says they thought they were carrying oil-drilling equipment, rather than 35 tonnes of explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and components for surface-to-air missiles, as the Thai government initially reported. Full details of the weapons and where they were manufactured have not been disclosed.
“We need more time to investigate and interrogate,” said police Major Sompot Khempeth, after the Bangkok Criminal Court accepted a police request to extend the crew’s detention an additional 12 days.
They can be held up to 84 days.
The crew members have been charged with illegal arms possession.
They were not present at court and were to be informed of the ruling via video conference later in the day, Sompot said.
Thai authorities, acting on a US tip, impounded the Ilyushin il-76 cargo plane on Dec. 12 during a refueling stop in Bangkok.
They seized the weapons and transferred them to a Thai military base for inspection.
The Thai government has been investigating the arms cache and says it will send the results to the UN.
The UN imposed sanctions in June banning North Korea from exporting any weapons after the communist regime conducted a nuclear test and test-fired missiles.
Impoverished North Korea is believed to earn hundreds of millions of dollars every year by selling missiles, missile parts and other weapons to countries like Iran, Syria and Myanmar.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
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MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
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