The deepening mystery of Malaysian Airlines’ flight MH 370 has now drawn in a star Italian footballer and a shadowy Iranian businessman who once operated out of the Thai resort of Pattaya.
As China stepped up its demands for answers to the disappearance of the B777 plane over the South China Sea with 239 passengers on board, Malaysian authorities have revealed one of the two men who used stolen passports to board the missing Malaysian Airlines plane "looked like soccer star Mario Balotelli".
An Iranian businessman who booked the tickets for the two passengers who boarded MH370 in Kuala Lumpur using the stolen passports has been named by Thai officials as Kazem Ali.
The men who boarded the plane were said to have not been of ‘Asian appearance’, as originally reported.
Malaysia’s acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, defended authorities for not releasing CCTV footage of the men earlier so their identities could be uncovered more quickly.
Asked by a reporter what the men looked like "roughly," Malaysia’s civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said: "Do you know of a footballer by the name of [Mario] Balotelli? He is an Italian. Do you know what he looks like?"
A reporter then asked, "Is he black?" and the aviation chief replied, "Yes."
