Crime
Woman Who Vanished from Thailand 18 Years Ago Spotted in a a Dublin Cafe
DUBLIN – An Australian-born fugitive who vanished from Thailand 18 years ago while on bail for serious drug smuggling charges has reportedly been sighted in Ireland.
According to the Daily Mail Lisa Marie Smith was spotted in a a Dublin cafe that investigators claim is owned by someone with a similar name to her father, millionaire Terry Smith.
Miss Smith was originally charged with carrying opium but this was later reduced to carrying 4kg of hashish and 500 amphetamine tablets after her parents arrived in the country with a top lawyer.
She claimed she was paid to take a backpack to Tokyo for a Pakistani man named Hassan.
The Daily Mail reported that after she was released from the notorious Lard Yao Prison – nicknamed the Bangkok Hilton – on bail she fled from Bangkok to Greece in 1996 using a British passport.
It is believed she then used another British passport to leave Greece.
Since then Miss Smith has appeared on Interpol’s most wanted list.
In 2001 the Australian Federal Police told Thai authorities of reports that Miss Smith was was living in WA as a newlywed housewife.
The West Australian reported that Smith allegedly sent a letter to a Victorian friend with a postmark of an unnamed inner Perth suburb.
The letter read: “I’m here in the west. It was just a hop, skip and a jump. I hope you are well … we all must get together some day soon. Love Lisa”.
The friend in Victoria claimed to have spoken to Smith by telephone when she told him she married an Englishman and moved to Australia in Christmas 2000.
In 2011 messages scrawled on pieces of wood and plaster began appearing around Sydney that suggested Miss Smith was living there.