A parcel delivery company in Thailand put three packages bound for the United States through a routine X-ray and made a startling discovery: five preserved human parts, including an infant’s head, a baby’s foot and a heart.
The body parts, it seems, were in fact stolen from the medical museums of one of Bangkok’s biggest hospitals, its administrators said yesterday. Two of them belonged to the department of anatomy and the other three to the department of forensic medicine.
The parts were stored in plastic containers filled with formaldehyde, wrapped and addressed to Las Vegas. Police Colonel Chumpol Poompuang said the sender was a 31-year-old American tourist who told them he had found the items at a Bangkok night market.
Police tracked down the American after being alerted by the shipper, DHL.
“He said he thought the body parts were bizarre and wanted to send them to his friends in the US,” Mr Chumpol said, adding that the man was questioned on Saturday along with an American friend for several hours and released without charge.
The three packages were being sent to Las Vegas, including one that the man had addressed to himself.
The seized packages were labelled as toys, police said. They were contacting the FBI to get information about the would-be recipients.
Clinical professor Udom Kachintorn, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital, said that the Americans visited the museum last Thursday, but that CCTV did not show them taking any items away.
Police at a news conference said the heart, which had been stabbed, belonged to an adult.
Police Lieutenant General Ruangsak Jaritake showed pictures of all five body parts, which included two pieces of tattooed skin from an adult, one with a jumping tiger and the other depicting an ancient Asian script.
The way the body parts were preserved and the manner in which they were cut appeared to be professional and police were examining whether the parts were stolen from medical institutes.
In some Thai cults, preserved foetuses or spiritual tattoos are thought to give the owners good luck or protection from evil. They can also be used to practise black magic.
A British citizen was arrested in 2012 with six roasted foetuses covered in gold leaf after police received information that infant bodies were being sold online for black magic.
Monday 17 November 2014
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/thai-baby-body-parts-posted-to-the-us-9866284.html
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