Officials yet to find evidence flight attendant was drug trafficking

Thai woman held without bail in Melbourne faces first court hearing on Sept 14

PUBLISHED : 1 Jul 2026 at 13:46

UPDATED : 1 Jul 2026 at 16:15

There has not been any evidence to support a conclusion that a Thai Airways flight attendant arrested in Australia was a drug trafficker, according to the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB).

ONCB deputy director-general Areepak Ngernbamroong said on Wednesday that information is still being collected in connection with the arrest by Australian Federal Police.

The flight attendant is being held without bail in Melbourne and is scheduled to make her first court appearance on Sept 14, Australian police said.

The ONCB has sought to find out what the Thai attendant told to Australian police, details of her travels before the arrest and the intended recipient in Australia of the embroidered tote bags the air hostess carried.

Due to the target's name being provided in English, officials have yet to determine if the recipient was a Thai national, Ms Areepak said.

The 26-year-old attendant, identified only as Meena, was on duty when she arrived in Melbourne on June 25. She had frequently flown to the city and existing evidence did not indicate that she was a member of any drug-trafficking gang.

However, officials have not ruled out such suspicions. It has not yet been determined why the woman took the risk of carrying the tote bags from a stranger. Most Thai flight crew would refuse to carry items from an anonymous party, Ms Areepak said.

The board noted the woman had been hired for only 8,800 baht to carry 12 tote bags from Thailand to Melbourne, and her family indicated she did not lead a luxurious lifestyle.

The apparent employer used a Facebook account named Rose Rose to contact the flight attendant, who was advertising merchandise-carrying services online. The Rose Rose account was terminated after the arrest on June 25.

“It is impossible to conclude right away if she was used by a transnational drug gang,” Ms Areepak said.

Police are still looking to question the delivery man who handled a box containing the tote bags in which the heroin was concealed.

The box was transported in a car, not a motorcycle as reported earlier, to the woman’s condominium in Bang Na district of Bangkok on June 22, ONCB director-general Suriya Singhakamol said.

A delivery man who reported to police in Samut Prakan on Wednesday turned out not to have been the one who handled the package, investigators said.

It was reported that two of the 12 tote bags contained about two kilogrammes of heroin in packages sewn into their linings. Drug smuggling carries a jail term of up to 25 years in Australia.