Uzbek woman arrested on Interpol alert

Immigration police arrest Sayora Melikova at an apartment on Rama IX Road in Huai Khwang district. (Immigration Police Bureau photo)

An Uzbek woman has been arrested at a condominium in Bangkok after eight years on the run from authorities in her country.

Immigration police captured Sayora Melikova at an apartment on Rama IX Road in Huai Khwang district on Tuesday.

Immigration Police Bureau chief Pol Lt Gen Sompong Chingduang said on Friday the 62-year-old woman was wanted by Interpol for human trafficking upon the request of Uzbekistan.

Kritmongkut Buranapakdi, the commander of the bureau's Division 2, explained that the Uzbek woman fled a brothel crackdown in southern Uzbekistan in 2011. She was suspected of escaping to Thailand.

Pol Col Kritmongkut said police tracked her whereabouts in Thailand before the arrest was made.

They also found three other Uzbek women in the same room and they admitted during an interrogation that they entered Thailand on a tourist visa and were involved in the flesh trade, he added.

Their visas were withdrawn after the questioning.