Thai Police Gen Somyot Pumpanmuang says the two Britons, one Slovak, one Filipino and one Taiwanese were escorted by US Drug Enforcement Administration officials on a chartered flight today from Bangkok.
He says they were suspected accomplices of their alleged ringleader, 48-year-old Joseph Hunter, who was arrested in the same sting operation in September on the resort island of Phuket. Federal authorities said the former US soldier ran a murder-for-hire organization.
Hunter was expelled by Thai authorities, and charged in New York with conspiracy to kill a DEA agent in addition to the drug charges, as were two other ex-soldiers, an American and a German.