THE WEEK THAT WAS All aboard the Corruption Express! Next stop a Police Station near you!

[rooster59]

 

Just when it looked like PM Prayut Chan-ocha might have something to smile about with some pandemic light at the end of the tunnel, that bright beam ahead turned out to be a derailing locomotive heading straight for him.

 

This runaway train with no one at the controls was the RTP Corruption Express. It had just left the 'station' in Nakhon Sawan.

 

Seven years ago some of us half welcomed the coup coming as it did on the back of political instability, fighting and death in the streets and widespread corruption at every level in Thailand. 

 

Surely this new man with the kindly face, singing returning happiness melodies, couldn’t be worse than what had come before and, given Thailand’s sketchy past, did it really matter if he had grabbed what was there for the taking?

 

We even gave some credence to his aim to rid Thailand of corruption in 20 years. But seven years in and the itch is getting worse. Only a fool would suggest otherwise.

 

Prayut took over from Prawit who used to be the chair of the Police Commission that oversees the RTP. Prawit had proved a liability after being chronographically challenged. It was hoped he would succumb to a surfeit of pie but he remains in-situ as one of a rogue’s gallery of DPM’s who make Pinnochio look like a Siam Paragon of virtue. 

 

Prayut decided to take on the oversight of the RTP, overlooking that it would be well beyond his order barking capabilities. Never was this so patently exposed as the case of the murder of a member of the public in custody in Muang Nakhon Sawan police station.

 

Yes, the suspect was in for drugs, yes, the police needed to get some information, yes, they don’t have to say please and thank you. 

 

But no, they are not allowed to handcuff a man, wrap his head in multiple layers of plastic and kill him in an alleged extortion attempt after finding 3 grams of meth. 

 

The man - for want of a better word - who oversaw this particular foray into Thai police brutality and corruption is thankfully in custody. 

 

He’d be still out driving his Lamborghini if it wasn’t for a video clip that within no time was viewed by millions of Thais and shared around the world much to the embarrassment of Prayut and his cronies and the top brass at the RTP.

 

All chief Gen Suwat Chaengyodsuk could muster was some platitudes about not protecting the guilty, ensuring justice and restoring confidence in the force. 

 

Farce more like. Sure there are some decent cops but finding them reminds me of the Thai proverb about searching for a needle in the ocean. Chuvit Kamolvisit - playboy businessman, convicted felon, TV presenter, former politician and fearless elite baiter - went on Facebook live to outline the hopeless state of the RTP.

 

Specifically he detailed the role that former chief of the Muang Nakhon Sawan police Thitisan Utthanaphon likely played. He noted the celebrity profile that this multi-millionaire cop on a 43,330 baht salary enjoys. Noted his ability to be obsequious with his superiors, recognise their place at the trough, dress well and look handsome all the while taking the public for a ride like giving them a jaunt in one his dozens of luxury motors to one of his mansions. 

 

Thitisan gave himself up Thursday realizing that the video meant this could not be easily swept under that thickest of shag pile that is the Thai carpet of misdemeanors and malfeasance. 

 

Cue the former Pol Col to take full responsibility, say he was only doing his bit for society and the kids in the war against drugs, put himself at the mercy of the court blah blah blah….

 

Yes, tell it to the judge please, we’re tired of hearing such nonsense.

 

Rooster does have more sympathy with his underlings. As Chuvit said they have got used to the revenue streat of prostitution and gambling now denied them as a result of the pandemic. They were also caught between a rock and a hard place, hence the video being made public as they probably feared for their lives.

 

But they are grown men too and despite being rozzers should have a vague understanding of the difference between right and wrong. 

 

Lock the minions away for 20 years and throw away “Jo Ferrari’s” key.

 

How he could afford the keys to 29 cars including a Bentley and the first Lamborghini Aventador in Thailand occupied many an ASEAN NOW poster when his monthly salary could not stretch to buying a single tire. 

 

The answer, perhaps, is tied up in a system of incentives for police busts, especially in the lucrative drugs trade, that lies at the heart of police corruption. Possibly hundreds of millions was “legitimately” due to the station chief after the seizure of luxury cars in cases he was involved in. 

 

This may be smoke and mirrors to hide even bigger fish further up the food chain but the fact remains that a system that rewards a poorly trained, top brass heavy bunch of underpaid gold-diggers for making big arrests and grabbing huge sums of money and assets - and sharing it disproportionately with their equally bent underlings - is no way to run a modern day police force. 

 

Intriguingly, the man who has been given the job of coming up with a strategy on police reform was everywhere this week - none other than RTP advisor in Pathumwan Lt-Gen Surachate “Big Joke” Hakpan.

 

He started the week looking vulnerable as a probe into his time at the Immigration Bureau two and more years ago looked in the offing. High profile lawyer Archariya Ruangrattanapong petitioned Suwat alleging that BJ had commandeered a staff of 17 cops for his house and that a previous probe was worthless. 

 

By mid week he was featured as a new assistant-commander-in-chief as Prayut shuffled his Deck of Demons at the Commission.

 

Then as reported on Friday, Lo and Behold!, there he was at the Phuket Sandbox, no less, talking about tourism safety and island security,  reverting to type in his PR role made so famous before Prayut gave him a paper shuffling job in his office so that everything would blow over; a ploy that has served the elites so well since Ai Dam and Eep sampled the fruits of ill-gotten gains in the Thai Garden of Corruption circa year dot.

 

Rooster is in fact hopeful that Surachate may at least make a positive start in reform. But even if his nose has not twitched at the truffles of delight in the Thai trough, he has a major job to do. 

 

His car has already been shot at once and he will doubtless have many more bullets to dodge but don’t be surprised if one day Surachate becomes a politician, maybe even a cleanish one.

 

In Bangkok the met police tried to explain away their heavy handed tactics against the protesters. The scenes of a mob - the RTP - attacking people on motorcycles again went round the world. They trotted a few mules to court and the spokesmen tried to keep a straight face as they spoke about protecting the public a few hundred yards from Prayut’s army base house near the Din Daeng intersection in downtown Bangkok. 

 

Who are they trying to kid? While I have often said that many Thais are like children they should baulk at being treated like kids by politicians and the police. Frankly, I fear that we have not seen anything yet with the political unrest and the police stories this week fuelling the fire.

 

The events of Nakhon Sawan, on the face of it a separate issue, serve to inflame passions more and sooner or later, possibly when the pandemic eases in intensity, more mainstream members of the public may say enough is enough on the streets of Krung Thep. 

 

The pandemic rumbled on with some optimism shown in the numbers of recoveries versus those who have dropped to the dreaded lurgy. More people are being vaccinated now including Mrs Rooster on Wednesday.

 

Jabs for foreigners were reported from Cha-Am to Korat to Chiang Mai with that US donated Pfizer reaching the arms of 60+’s, those with 7 deadly diseases and pregnant women.

 

For some unknown reason only people from the American and European continents and Japan would be eligible in Nonthaburi. 

 

I can only imagine that the governor must have had a romantic letdown in Australia or New Zealand and was taking it out on the antipodeans. 

 

A vaccine bus service was introduced in Bangkok to bring jabs to people’s front doors. With my luck especially in coming from England, I'd wait for several hours before three came at once. Forgetting the vaccine.

 

In related news Thailand’s restaurant owners are willing to jump through any hoops to see some diners through the door. The compulsory vaccination of staff and their 5-7 days repeat ATK testing seems less of a step than the unpleasant spectre of customers having to prove they are double or triple vaxxed just to have a bite to eat.

 

This will only lead in one direction thanks to corruption and the general propensity of the Thai public to misbehave when it suits them. Expect Thailand to become an absolute hub of fake vaccination certificates. 

 

This has already hit the US and many other places. In the States less that $20 can get you an online certificate, remembering there are huge swathes of the population there who are anti-vaxxers. A bent doctor has also been struck off Stateside for writing out mask wearing exemptions. 

 

Just as in Thailand there were many cases of PPE, mask and even alcohol gel corruption at the outset of the pandemic, so was there mischief if not malice aforethought in the production of vaccines in Thailand, their procurement from abroad and whose arms they would end up in first. Then came a looming scandal in test kits that for now at least seems to be “sous shag pile”

 

Requiring certification - especially while fewer than 20% have been double dosed - will lead to a free for all in falsified documents that will make those stands you used to see selling dodgy licenses on Khao San Road look legit. 

 

And it could make legal documents worthless. 

 

Anutin met the restaurant owners and smiled his best “do I look like I give a toss” grimace and promised it’ll all look rosier next month and by October it’ll be all over, just like our dear uncle who art in khaki has decreed in all his patent wisdom. 

 

Apart from the shenanigans at the nick, the main story this week was the story of a young Thai motorist who got in a right tizzy after an octogenarian in Chiang Mai rapped on his car. He had failed to stop at a Zebra Crossing outside a supermarket.The Thai went after the pensioner (all caught on dash cam) and leveled him with a cowardly kick to the back. They let bygones be bygones after a hospital bill was paid.

 

The old Aussie was silly in hitting the car - such things can get you shot in Thailand, brother. And we do all get racked off from time to time, cobber.

 

But the assailant was more out of order than a Thai phone box. The police should have prosecuted and the court could have given him six months suspended (if he hadn’t been convicted before).

 

Letting the farang side down - at least in the eyes of the locals and authorities on Koh Phangan - were a group of Europeans (yoga teachers?) who were not wearing masks on a deserted beach. 

 

Good effort guys, that’ll really get the tourists flooding back in, we know how they insist on sanitation.

 

Down in QUOTES - the Queen Of The Eastern Seaboard - mayor Sontaya (son of a well known kamnan who tested the Chords of Corruption) was given an unfamiliar lash of the cat. It concerned the 100 million ++ Miami-ization of 2.7 kms of Beach Road. 

 

The Marine Department said it was illegal and the mayor had not asked for permission to encroach on their 400M++ sands. 

 

Then environmentalists - so annoying to politicians in many countries that they wind up shot - pitched in about uprooting sturdy 50 year old trees and replacing them with flimsy palms that fall over whenever there’s wind (which there is sometimes on the coast).

 

Then on Friday as if on cue the whole place flooded and what few hardy souls that are left there were paralyzed...oh well!

 

Person to remember this week is Jirapong aged 24. He may have been a meth head and a dealer but both he and his family deserved another chance. 

 

Finally, and hopefully not prophetically, it was one of Jirapong’s killer’s showroom of cars that caught Rooster’s beady eye.

 

No, not a Porsche, Ferrari or even an Audi.

 

A Ford Escape.

 

Rooster

 

 

-- © Copyright  ASEAN NOW 2021-08-29

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

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[Gandtee]

That just about sums it up. Amazing Thailand.????

[LoliLoso]

59 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

Finally, and hopefully not prophetically, it was one of Jirapong’s killer’s showroom of cars that caught Rooster’s beady eye.

 

No, not a Porsche, Ferrari or even an Audi.

 

A Ford Escape.

Hahaha !  A Failed Escape.

[TheFishman1]

Everybody knows the top cops are all married women that are millionaires TIT

[inThailand]

Maybe if it was 10 pages of less rambling we might read the whole thing? 

[THAIPHUKET]

17 minutes ago, inThailand said:

Maybe if it was 10 pages of less rambling we might read the whole thing? 

 

[PaulDee]

Excellent editorial.

 

Well-written, pointed, enlightening, and courageous.

 

Thank you.

[heybruce]

Just as talk of reforming the RTP tapered off after they brought down LtGen Manus (who richly deserved to be brought down) https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/579131/arrest-of-senior-army-adviser-sought-for-human-trafficking, so all talk of reform will end when the RTP once again demonstrates that they can bring down high level crooks throughout the government if talk of reform turns into real reform.

 

This corrupt military government will no more reform the corrupt RTP than the RTP will reform the military.

[ezzra]

I gave the op a like because  many others did, he's a MOD and the article looks very impressive...

[Marcomilton7]

RTP & ARMY both wings of the same bird..

[Curmudgeonly59]

Rooster,

A+ for this week's effort. Keep it coming.

[Curmudgeonly59]

57 minutes ago, THAIPHUKET said:

 

I saw little 'rambling' - but did hear the blissful sounds of large nails being hammered firmly on the head...

[Jonathan Swift]

Just a general comment - there isn't anything written about Thailand or that takes place here that doesn't exist tenfold or worse in the US and other "developed" countries. Including and especially heinous crimes and murders committed by police against the innocent and the guilty. I can't visit the US for more than a few weeks before I start going out of my mind over American insanity. The racism, the hate, the ignorance and stupidity. Anti vaxxers and mask protesters. Violence far beyond anything you'll ever see in Thailand. Corruption of a magnitude that dwarfs relatively small time guys like Joe Ferrari. If you look through just today's headlines you can find a half dozen or more US cops convicted of murders, and that's just the ones who got caught and tried and made it to today's news.. Most guilty cops in the US, just like elsewhere, never get convicted even after arrest and aggressive prosecution. The police unions protect them. I agree with everything said here, I've actually been paying attention since 2013, but I keep it in perspective and make my peace with it, and am happy with my choice to live here. Peace to you all.

[Mark mark]

Yes keep the Good Rambling coming Rooster !!! ... Things so bad that it is hard to give the usual awards out at the end of your Pieces !!! ??? ... Like "The Most Depressing" ? or "Most messed up" ? or "Biggest (But quite obvious) disasters this week !!! ...  All very good Non Starters right !!! ??? ...

 

I had better just ignore it all, .... and get back to the Thai Embassy web site, and just keep on drooling about NON O-X ... Five year Visas. ??? ...   Less dramas with renewals ? .... of insurance ? ... Bank account statements, ? and at the Immigration Department ???  ... Every thing else being pretty handleably, and even the Epidemic I think ... ... Thai's still being pretty good at Dealing with these things I think ??? ...  From a Local Point of View any way ???  ...  There being a cluster <Deleted> all over the world just now, ... and it is STILL getting worse I think ??? Just about every where ! ...

 

So would I get the "There is a Cluster <Deleted> all over the world ... If you had not noticed " award now ??? 

 

Still ... "We shall See" ... as the Russians would say.

 

( And I would be pretty Much More <Deleted> off with the Idiots cutting down those beautiful Old Trees In ??? Puke Et ? Or was it Pattaya ??? ... Both places Beaches, being Disasters waiting to happen so it would seem ???) 

[Mark mark]

15 minutes ago, Jonathan Swift said:

Just a general comment - there isn't anything written about Thailand or that takes place here that doesn't exist tenfold or worse in the US and other "developed" countries. Including and especially heinous crimes and murders committed by police against the innocent and the guilty. .....

Yes ! at least they do not discriminate against Dark Skinned people in Thailand. ... ... Yet ??? .. The whole world changing pretty fast Now, and often not to the best just at the moment I think ??? ... Just verbally.? Right ??? or On Line !!! ???

[khunjeff]

3 hours ago, rooster59 said:

Requiring certification - especially while fewer than 20% have been double dosed - will lead to a free for all in falsified documents that will make those stands you used to see selling dodgy licenses on Khao San Road look legit.

Particularly since the actual number of fully vaccinated folks is much closer to 10% than 20% - I guess the restaurants will mostly be serving medical personnel and influential rich people.

[spidermike007]

Good post. Thanks to the mods and the news team. Refreshing to hear them call out these clowns.

 

To call this a failed administration, would be to state the obvious. They have never addressed human trafficking, sex slavery, and abuse in the fishing industry. They have never addressed corruption, on any level. 

They have never addressed police reform. The mafia continues to work their franchises, with impunity. 

They have never addressed the multitude of air, water and other environmental issues. 

They have never addressed public or traffic safety. 

They appoint based solely on cronyism, and never consider merit, talent, or experience. And this has led to the current catastrophic state of the economy, the Covid response, and the sabotage and destruction of the once vital tourism industry. 

Prayuth and this administration are the do nothing people. Their sole purpose is to protect the elite, the super rich, corporations, the police, immigration, customs, and those currently in power. Nothing else matters to these dinosaurs. And Thailand will pay the price for this failed regime for years to come. Woe are the people of Thailand. 

They justly deserve all the criticism, humiliation and shame that can be heaped upon them. Out with the dinosaurs. In with the youth! 

 

 

[Dont confuse me]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Swift said:

Just a general comment - there isn't anything written about Thailand or that takes place here that doesn't exist tenfold or worse in the US and other "developed" countries. Including and especially heinous crimes and murders committed by police against the innocent and the guilty. I can't visit the US for more than a few weeks before I start going out of my mind over American insanity. The racism, the hate, the ignorance and stupidity. Anti vaxxers and mask protesters. Violence far beyond anything you'll ever see in Thailand. Corruption of a magnitude that dwarfs relatively small time guys like Joe Ferrari. If you look through just today's headlines you can find a half dozen or more US cops convicted of murders, and that's just the ones who got caught and tried and made it to today's news.. Most guilty cops in the US, just like elsewhere, never get convicted even after arrest and aggressive prosecution. The police unions protect them. I agree with everything said here, I've actually been paying attention since 2013, but I keep it in perspective and make my peace with it, and am happy with my choice to live here. Peace to you all.

I can't argue with your post the only thing that possibly makes a difference is that the Police elsewhere don't have to resort to corruption to make a reasonable living where in Thailand it seems the only way to earn a reasonable wage is to join the corrupt bandwagon. ???? 

[madmitch]

Best column for some time, Rooster. Thank you.

[Andycoops]

Yes, they do know right from wrong.

They know what's right for their bank accounts and everyone else is wrong.

Reform will never happen because of the greed.

 

[southcoast]

3 hours ago, inThailand said:

Maybe if it was 10 pages of less rambling we might read the whole thing? 

Go on, have a go at reading.  Educate yourself if that’s possible. Superb writing and says what the people think. Looks like your a fan of the goons that support this military run country. Submarines, Space program, Monorail in Pattaya and the rest of the crazy ideas all come before the “People”. Where is the government when the people need help?. Opening more brown envelopes!.

[473geo]

Good read thanks

[monty1412]

nicely written ... good summary of right and wrong (mainly  the latter) in the Garden of Siam

[bullseye66]

Corruption in Thailand? Surely not.

[Speedhump]

4 hours ago, THAIPHUKET said:

 

Speechless?... 

 

4 hours ago, inThailand said:

Maybe if it was 10 pages of less rambling we might read the whole thing? 

This was one of the few of his scribblings I read from end to end as it was all interesting (I thought). Usually I just dip in. 

[John P]

Excellent assessment of state of affairs currently happening in Thailand. Good job!

[LikeItHot]

<deleted> these crooked cops

[Artisi]

A good read this week, you could if you wish nit-pick a few points and applaud others, but taken overall as a whole, well done and to the point. 

[PFMills]

Still if Lotus runs out of plastic bags we now know where we can be sure to find a few 

Edited August 29, 2021 by PFMills

[Aussieroaming]

We can all talk about the corruption but the corruption needs to be documented and laid bare by an investigative journalist, alas it seems that there aren't too many journalists in Thailand that are willing or capable of doing this. This joker cop is sitting in the middle of the chain of command, he is paying it forward like all other cops have too. The head of the snake isn't in view yet. The murder charge is one angle that needs to be bought to trial, the endemic corruption and money laundering requires a totally different investigation to the murder.