> The operation included the arrest on 5 July of of suspected AlphaBay founder Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen detained on behalf of the US in Thailand. Cazes, 25, died a week later while in Thai custody.
What's this about? The US told Thailand to arrest a Canadian tourist, who they subsequently murdered? People don't die by accident in police custody.
He had been living there for several years and owned multiple houses. Not a tourist.
>The Bangkok Post reported Cazes was discovered in the bathroom of his cell hanging from a towel. The NSB’s Major General Soontorn Chalermkiat told the paper there are “no clues that suggest he didn’t hang himself.”
In 2012, 4,309 inmates died while in the custody of local jails or state prisons [in the US]. (...) The number of deaths in local jails increased, from 889 in 2011 to 958 in
2012 (...) More than a third (36%) of deaths in local jails occurred within 7 days of admission
I imagine that, when you have been the mediator of a bunch of drug trade transactions, "getting caught" can be something of an indirect act of suicide.
From the pictures on Facebook there was no sign of a struggle, the woman in the cell next to him and the cop monitoring the cells both told the same story. It is unlikely that the Thai police would suicide someone for drug crimes that were committed outside the Kingdom. There is just no angle in it.
The Thai Police were looking at huge publicity for arresting him. They would want him alive. Clearly he didn't have the connections he needed to be a rich criminal in the Kingdom otherwise he'd have evaded arrest (they had him under surveillance for a while.)
I think it is likely that he chose suicide on his own terms over a lifetime sentence in a US jail. Given the lifestyle he was used to, facing a lifetime in US jail would be pretty depressing.
What's this about? The US told Thailand to arrest a Canadian tourist, who they subsequently murdered? People don't die by accident in police custody.