Police find bloodstains but no bodies at home of Alan Hogg and his wife Nod Suddaen

Police in northern Thailand have arrested three men who allege they were paid to carry out the murder of a British millionaire and his wife.

Alan Hogg, 64, from Edinburgh, and his Thai wife, Nod Suddaen, 61, were reported missing from their home in Phrae province on Thursday after they failed to meet friends in the nearby city of Chiang Mai.

Bloodstains were found in the sink and changing room area around the pool at their home, with signs that those surfaces had been wiped. A mobile phone belonging to Nod was still charging when police arrived to search the property.

On Tuesday morning, police confirmed they had arrested three men who had admitted to killing the couple. The men alleged they had been paid 50,000 baht (£1171) by the wife’s estranged brother, Warut Satchakit, to carry out the murder and claimed it was he who had disposed of the bodies.

Police Gen Sanpat Prabpudsa, who was leading the investigation, said: “We have arrested three men who have confessed.”

The men reportedly confessed to first shooting Hogg in front of the duck pen and then beating his wife to death with a hammer in the garage. The bodies of the couple were found buried two metres deep in holes next to each other, adjacent to a creek that ran through their large property.

Police said the crime was linked to a family dispute. “The brother-in-law had problems with money and there were family issues,” Prabpudsa said.

Satchakit was arrested on Monday after CCTV footage showed him entering the couple’s home on Thursday morning and driving away their car. He was released on bail and has since disappeared.

Hogg, who worked as an engineer and businessman, had moved to Thailand several years ago and built the couple’s luxury three-storey home in Phrae province, which included a swimming pool, summer house and cattle yard. Their daughter, Robyn, flew to Thailand from the UK over the weekend to assist in the search.

Hogg appears to have severed many of his ties to the UK. He resigned in July 2017 as a director of the specialist dry-cleaning firm Clayfull, based in Bonnyrigg, near Edinburgh, which he co-founded in 1994.

He had controlled 50-75% of the company’s shares and was listed as the only person with significant control of the business until it was sold that month to Johnson Service Group, a UK-wide firm that rents out and launders workware, and hotel and restaurant laundry.

Another firm, Sherwood Edinburgh, which listed Hogg as an offshore construction manager, is in liquidation. Two other companies of his were dissolved more than a decade ago.

In a statement the Foreign Office said: “Our staff are providing support to the family of a British couple who have died in Thailand and we are in contact with the local authorities.”