Ex-Thai Official Pleads Guilty to Oil Scheme

A former government official from Thailand and two businessmen pleaded guilty Thursday in a scheme to smuggle Iraqi oil.

Surasak Nananukool, a former Thai deputy finance minister, pleaded guilty in federal court to a felony currency violation in a plea agreement.

A more serious charge of conspiracy was dismissed as part of the agreement, which was signed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

Simon Tan, an importer from Singapore, and Amnard Vorachard, a sales broker from Thailand, both agreed to plead guilty to one count each of conspiracy.

The plea agreements will allow Nananukool and Tan to be released from custody and to leave the United States within days. Vorachard is expected to be sentenced Feb. 26 to 15 months in prison and should be freed in April with credit for the time he has spent in custody since his arrest.

The three men were arrested in San Diego last March after a U.S. Customs Service investigation into the smuggling of oil from Iraq in violation of United Nations export controls.

U.S. authorities said the three men came to San Diego to make final arrangements to illegally buy $20 million worth of Iraqi oil from an undercover customs agent posing as an international broker.

Nananukool, 56, pleaded guilty to bringing more than $10,000 into the United States without reporting it and was sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation. He had been free on $300,000 bond after serving five months in a federal jail after his arrest in March. He was Thailand’s deputy finance minister from 1996 to 1997.