Deputy National Thai Police Chief Transferred to Inactive Post

Deputy National police chief Pol Gen Wirachai Songmetta has been transferred effective immediately to the Prime Minister’s Office. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha issued the transfer order on Thursday afternoon.

His transfer came for apparently for defying a direct order by national police chief Pol Gen Chakthip Chaijinda.

Despite his inactive role at the PM’s office, Pol Gen Wirachai will continue to receive the same remuneration and privileges from the Royal Thai Police Office.

The transfer follows a report from the RTPO saying that Pol Gen Wirachai’s behavior and actions had affected public confidence in the national police chief, and the image of the police force.

The RTPO formed a committee on Tuesday to investigate the matter. Pol Gen Wirachai was quickly  transferred to ensure a transparent probe.

Also on Thursday, Police Gen Chakthip issued instructions cancelling order assigning Police Gen Wirachai to act on his behalf in several areas. Including intellectual property violations.

On Jan 9 Pol Gen Wirachai allegedly defied Pol Gen Chakthip’s instruction to stay out of the investigation. The investigation into shots fired into vehicle of Pol Lt Gen Surachate Hakparn.  Gen. Surachate was the former immigration chief and now special civilian adviser to the PM’s Office.

On that day Pol Gen Wirachai met reporters at the Office of Police Forensic Science and supervised the examination of the vehicle. Apparently ignoring an order by Police Chief not to meet reporters over the case. He was ordered to wait for the investigation report from the Metropolitan Police Bureau.

The instruction was heard in an audio clip of a phone conversation leaked on the morning of Jan 9.  In the recording a senior police officer was also heard warning a subordinate. The clip also mentioned a person named “Joke”.

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Deputy police spokesman later confirmed it was a conversation between the national police chief and Pol Gen Wirachai.

Police Gen Wirachai interrogated Pol Lt Gen Surachate at Bang Rak police station about the shooting on Jan 6.

In the audio clip, Pol Gen Chakthip was also heard saying that a police general should not take orders from a police lieutenant general. Also that Pol Gen Wirachai should not do anything that would lose his trust.

Earlier, Pol. Lt Gen Surachate linked the shooting of his car to his opposition to a 2-billion-baht biometric identification system. The RTPO purchased the system through the Immigration Bureau.

He also demanded Police Gen Chakthip take responsibility if those responsible for the attack on his car were not arrested.

Prominent lawyer Sittra Biabangkerd has asked to the National Anti-Corruption Commission to question Pol Gen Chakthip about the procurement of the biometric identification system. Also about plug-in hybrid patrol vehicles bought for the Immigration Bureau.

He alleged that Pol Gen Chakthip approved the procurement. Also that the biometric identification system was inefficient in some areas and that its delivery was long delayed.

Source: The Bangkok Post

Romance scam #Nigerian gang busted by joint forces

Thai police have joined their Malaysian counterparts to bust a Nigerian gang operating online romance scams, the same gang that fled Thailand a year ago to set up in Kuala Lumpur. 

Thai immigration police head Maj-Gen Surachate Hakparn, in his capacity as deputy director of the Thailand's Action Taskforce for Information Technology Crime Suppression (TACTICS), on Wednesday led his team to join with Malaysian economic crime busters to search seven locations in Kuala Lumpur. At the same time, Thai police raided three locations in Thailand that allegedly had links to the gang. 

The operation in Kuala Lumpur led to the arrest of seven Nigerians, all of whom were wanted for alleged fraud in Thailand, and seven female Thai accomplices. 

Officers also seized computers and cell phones showing chat messages with victims, many of whom were in process of being convinced to wire money, and some scripts to persuade victims.

The romance scams would usually involve criminals using bogus white male identities to woo and later persuade women to wire money to pay an import tariff and fee for the delivery of overseas “gifts".

Surachate said TACTICS had come down hard on this gang, prompting the criminals to flee to Malaysia about a year ago. The gang set up their new base and resumed the romance scams, he said.

Surachate claimed that this gang had duped people of nearly Bt100 million in total.

Last year, TACTICS co-operated with their foreign counterparts to make nine arrests in seven countries.

Source - TheNation

#Thailand - Police set up team to hunt Yingluck after ‘easy’ escape.

Interpol to assist as anti-corruption activist accuses authorities of negligence.

AMID a flurry of blame, accusations and speculation, authorities remain unable to explain how former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra was so easily able to escape justice.

Anti-corruption activist Srisuwan Junya yesterday lodged a petition with the National Anti-Corruption Commission, asking it to investigate the failure of top security officers to prevent Yingluck from fleeing the country.

 Srisuwan focused on Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, who oversees security matters, and police chief Pol General Chakthip Chaijinda, accusing them of being negligent in their duties. 

Prawit, who is also Defence Minister, said the activist has the right to do so, but reiterated that the authorities had no way to prevent Yingluck from fleeing the country.

“How could the authorities know when and where she would flee? Who would know it?” Prawit said at the Defence Ministry, in response to a reporter who pointed out that the authorities had closely monitored Yingluck’s movements even when she went to temples to make merit. The former premier had always complained that security officials and spies followed her everywhere.

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 “Yingluck’s escape was unexpected because she earlier always insisted that she would not flee. And there were police in front of her house all the time,” Prawit said. 

The authorities still have no official explanation as to how Yingluck failed to show up at the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions last Friday. Her whereabouts since have been the subject of intense speculation by the media, activists and observers. 

The court has postponed the verdict delivery to late next month, and has issued an arrest warrant, but nobody has a clear answer as to whether she will return to Thailand. 

Police have set up a team to track her, and the relevant agencies have been closely following movements around border areas, including natural land borders. Officers had been instructed to report the results of the operation every five days, deputy national police chief Pol General Srivara Ransibrahmanakul said.

Police in Lat Phrao have been instructed to check all the surveillance cameras around Yingluck’s house as well as her other residences in Bangkok and her hometown of Chiang Mai, but they have failed to find her, Srivara said.

Speculation denied

According to Srivara, Yingluck was last seen in her Bangkok home at 2pm on Wednesday. Officers from Lat Phrao Police Station, who were responsible for supervising Yingluck’s residence, said other people in the house had confirmed that she no longer lived there. 

Royal Thai Police will now seek the cooperation of Interpol to alert police forces in 190 countries around the world about Yingluck’s current legal status. 

Media citing unnamed sources reported that she had fled via Cambodia and Singapore to Dubai to join her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who has a home there. The government in Phnom Penh dismissed the report, and authorities in Dubai also said they know nothing about Yingluck’s whereabouts.

Pol Maj-General Apichart Suriboonya, head of the police foreign affairs division, said the police had contacted officials in Cambodia and the United Arab Emirates but had received no information. 

Apichart told reporters about normal procedures, saying that Interpol could take “quite some time”. If any member of Interpol located Yingluck, Thai police could seek an international arrest warrant to have her apprehended. However, it would be up to Interpol how the case was conducted. 

Like everybody else, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday denied speculation that the National Council for Peace and Order deliberately let Yingluck slip out of the country, saying it was beyond his expectation that she would flee.

“I didn’t think it would happen. In the morning [of the verdict], I still thought that she would go to court, following the procedure. I respected her,” Prayut said. 

Bombarded with questions about the incident, Prayut said furiously: “Who would let her flee? How come, why did you think like this?”

Prayut said he had instructed security officers to find out how the former premier left the country. They would also look at flaws in the process in order to prevent it happening again.

Prayut, who is also the head of the junta, said it was difficult for the authorities to follow Yingluck |before the court had made its judgment because they respected her privacy. 

Officers had been criticised over their possible violation of human rights, Prayut noted, adding that that had made everything difficult.

Prayut said he didn’t want people to blame the security officers, saying that the media should tone down its criticism. It would be “insane” if officers intentionally let her flee, he said.

Source - TheNation