1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
In focus
SyriaMiddle East crisisGerman election 2025
Latest audioLatest videos
Live TV
CrimeThailand

Thailand arrests 2 Germans over body found in freezer

July 12, 2023

The two suspects were charged with the murder of a real estate broker whose body was found stuffed in a chest freezer. Police said the third suspect was still being sought.

https://p.dw.com/p/4TlVA
A Thai reporter takes a photo of an empty freezer at the Nong Prue police station in Pattaya
A Thai reporter takes a photo of an empty freezer at the Nong Prue police station in PattayaImage: AP Photo/picture alliance

Thai police have arrested two Germans in connection with killing another German whose dismembered body was found in a freezer in an eastern Thailand home, authorities said on Wednesday.

A 52-year-old German man was apprehended Tuesday evening in Bangkok, and a 47-year-old German woman turned herself up earlier in the day, the Khaosod newspaper reported.

The mutilated corpse of 62-year-old Hans-Peter Mack was found Monday night stuffed into a chest freezer in a home in Nong Prue.

Citing Tawee Kudthalaeng, the police chief in the town of Nong Prue, the media reported that the two suspects had been charged with murder and the third suspect was still being sought.

He did not provide further details about the third suspect. 

According to the reports, the Thai police office was looking into both German and Thai nationals as suspects in the case. 

How a dismembered body was found in a freezer

Hans-Peter Mack, the German real estate broker,  a resident of Thailand for several years, had been missing for a week. Police had pieced together security camera footage in the hope of finding him alive.

Instead, they found the mutilated corpse inside a chest freezer at a house in the upscale settlement of Nong Prue.

Mack, formerly a boss of Munich corporate communications firm Media AG, had last been seen driving his Mercedes sedan in the coastal city of Pattaya where he lived with his Thai wife.

Investigators said a large amount of money was found to be missing from the businessman's bank account, adding that they thought the crime was linked to extortion.

After the incident, the German Foreign Ministry said it was aware of the case and that its officials were in touch with the Mack's relatives and Thai authorities. 

ara/sms (AP,dpa)