IS THE WORLD'S MOST WANTED WOMAN A PERTH HOUSEWIFE?

It is almost four years since Lisa Marie Smith vanished from Thailand. Her
name appears on Most Wanted lists on three continents. Padraic Murphy and
Andrew Rule report on the latest sensational twist in one of the drug
world's most enduring mysteries.

International fugitive and alleged drug smuggler Lisa Marie Smith, once
branded the most wanted woman in the world, is said to be living secretly
in Australia as a newly married housewife.

The Melbourne-born woman is wanted for extradition to Thailand by the
international crime-fighting agency Interpol after she skipped bail on
drugs charges and fled the country.

Smith - reportedly the first Australian drugs prisoner to be granted bail
in Thailand - was last seen on the playgrounds of Europe, including Greece.

But she is said to have slipped unnoticed into Australia - despite being on
the "red alert" list held by immigration and police authorities around the
world.

According to a friend and confidant, she has told him she has married an
Englishman. And a short, signed letter he received suggests she may already
have started a family.

Federal police and Interpol have confirmed Smith is wanted, but said the
alert system should have detected her if she had tried to enter Australia
under her own name.

The belief she entered the country just before Christmas is based on a
claim by a Victorian confidant of Smith's who says he received a letter
from her at her safe haven in Western Australia. He also says he spoke to
her by phone.

Smith wrote to the man - who wants to be known only by his first name,
Grant - in March and June, 1996, when she was in jail in Thailand.

Grant had earlier written to Smith offering advice on how he left Thailand
after spending months in jail on a firearms charge in 1987. He advised
Smith which Bangkok solicitors to trust.

In letters to Grant, Smith wrote "... hopefully in the not too distant
future, I'll be visiting Australia".

Smith, who holds Australian and British passports, was 20 when she was
arrested on February 13, 1996, at Bangkok Airport on charges of trying to
smuggle 4kg of cannabis and 565 amphetamine tablets out of Thailand. Facing
20 years in the notorious Klong Prem jail, known as the "Bangkok Hilton",
Smith fled justice in August 1996 after her father, Terry Smith, then Hong
Kong-based chief executive in Asia for the AXA China insurance company,
paid $75,000 bail.

The most recent letter from Smith to Grant, a typewritten paragraph, says:
"So pleased to be able to write to you again, many things have happened
since I last wrote you and it's so good to be home and maybe a family.

"Thanks for all your help, never has such good advice come at the right time.

"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." Smith signs the letter
"love Lisa".

A handwriting expert who examined the signatures could not make a judgment
one way or the other.

Grant says Smith told him she had married an Englishman and had entered the
country on her own passport, or possibly on a passport in her new married name.

He claims the letter was sent to his old address in Melbourne a few weeks
before Christmas and forwarded to him in country Victoria. It was followed
by a telephone call, he says, in which Smith referred to living "out west".
This letter was postmarked at an inner Perth suburb, he says.

Dick Moses, head of the Australian Federal Police's international
operations, said the letter was "interesting, but not conclusive".

He appealed to any member of the public harbouring Smith to come forward.

"The Australian Federal Police welcome any information that may assist us
in locating her whereabouts," Moses said.

It was unlikely Smith, who remained on Interpol's 10 most wanted list,
would have entered the country under her own name and passport. "She has a
red flag attached to her, which means anybody travelling using her
passports would have been picked up by immigration officials," Moses said.

Moses said he would contact Thai authorities to tell them of the letter.

"Basically we will only arrest her if there's a specific request from our
counterparts in Thailand."

Asked if she would be deported to Thailand - a country where she faces the
death sentence or a lengthy jail term, Moses said: "That's a matter for the
Federal Government".

Meanwhile, Thai police have stepped up their international search and
pledged this week they would not give up until Smith was extradited and
faced trial in Thailand.

Smith's disappearance from Thailand led to claims others had bought her
freedom.

Thai police foreign affairs department commander Watcharapol Prasarnrajkit
said at the time that an international search for the then 20-year-old
would be conducted and that "the reputation of Thailand is at stake".

The granting of bail under the circumstances was seen as virtually
unprecedented in a country where accused prisoners are normally kept in
chains in appalling prison conditions and led to a serious rift between
police and justice officials, amid allegations that the course of justice
in the Smith case had been perverted.

There are also concerns that the Smith case has put other foreigners in
danger of harsher sentences when arrested in Thailand and that Australia
might be reluctant to extradite in future.

Three Australians, Lyle Doniger, Jane Dawson and Deborah Spinner, regarded
by the AFP as small-time couriers in an operation organised by others, were
each sentenced in 1997 to 50 years' jail after pleading guilty to
attempting to carry 115 grams of heroin from Bangkok to Sydney.

An AFP officer involved in the investigation was reported to have said
there was "complete shock" at the "draconian sentence" and it might affect
how AFP officers liaised with Thai police in future operations.

"The sentence is totally inconsistent for what was a relatively small
amount of heroin," the officer told The Sun-Herald. "It was expected, going
on previous cases, that the three would be sentenced to 12 to 15 years and
that they would possibly serve six or eight.

"The Thais were extremely embarrassed and angry that Lisa Marie Smith had
absconded and I believe that these three are paying the price for her escape."