THE former captain of a 'phantom' ship who recruited its crew - now feared murdered by pirates - is behind bars in a Hong Kong jail for smuggling aliens.
South Korean Kim Tae-kuk, 45, has been questioned by Interpol officers about the Tenyu, which disappeared with its 15-member crew in the pirate-ridden Straits of Malacca five months ago but was found in China repainted and renamed.
The South Korean Government is disturbed by the loss of the ship's $15 million cargo of aluminium ingots as well as the disappearance of two of its citizens, captain Sin Yong-ju, 51, and chief engineer Pak Ha-jun, 44.
Kim captained the Tenyu from 1988 to 1993 before moving to Dalian in northern China to set up a shipping consultancy called Marine International, according to sources.
He recruited the crew from northern China and Hong Kong, according to the International Maritime Bureau and the ship's owners, Tokyo-based Tenyu Shipping.
Kim was caught last June smuggling two mainlanders through Hong Kong airport to work illegally in Japan, where triad and yakuza gangs use illegal immigrants in red-light, vice and sweatshop labour rackets.
He is now serving a 21-month sentence in Hong Kong.