Dsi Targets Phuket Land Encroachers

[Lite Beer]

DSI targets Phuket land encroachers

THE NATION ON SUNDAY

PHUKET: -- The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) will use the new Anti-Money Laundering law to crack down on influential figures who have allegedly encroached on over 3,000 rai of the Sirinart National Park in Phuket to develop luxury resorts.

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The chief of the DSI's Consumer and Environment Protection Office, Pol Lt-Colonel Prawuth Wongsinil, said the agency received a complaint from the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation seeking an investigation into a group of businessmen and influential figures who allegedly encroached on the national park in Thalang district.

He said about 3,000 rai of the park, which spans 60,000 rai, has been encroached upon, with land title deeds issued and sold to foreign investors. A total of 14 hotels and resorts are being built there. There have been attempts to seek land title deeds for another 400 plots.

The two agencies met to discuss the problem and decided to establish a joint committee to prevent tree felling in the national parks. The committee would monitor any forest encroachment activity. The Land Department would inspect issuance of land title deeds within three months.

Prawuth said the new law, which took effect on February 2, could be used to take legal action against those who commit offences related to natural resources and the environment. As well as applying the new law, the land title deeds would be revoked, he said.

"Some groups of influential figures have taken Bt30 million in deposits from land buyers and then used the money to get land title deeds illegally,'' he said.

The DSI will probe whether foreigners are using nominees to own these plots. "The luxury hotels and resorts, including the land, could be worth over Bt10 billion,'' he said.

-- The Nation 2013-02-17

[Valentine]

So could be anything between Laguna & Naithon.

[Soupdragon]

What does allegedly encroached mean. Unless the boundaries of the National Park are flexible and shift around over time they either have or have not encroached. Does nobody have a map which clearly shows where the boundaries are ?

Call me cynical but it seems if the right people benefit then no investigation finds fault (or is scrapped) but if pesky foreigners are involved then they stand to lose their investment.

[taninthai]

Yeah yeah heard it all before..............hand over brown envelope time again

[JetsetBkk]

PHUKET: -- The investigation by the Public sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) into allegedly illegally issued land titles covering more than 500 rai of land in Phuket has silently been dropped.

The PACC, set up specifically to fight corruption among government officials, quietly dropped the probe into hundreds of Phuket land titles just days after Col Dusadee Arayawuth, who had initiated the investigation, was transferred to the Ministry of Justice on October 1 last year, the Phuket Gazette recently discovered.

http://www.thaivisa....investigations/

So the investigation's back on, is it?

[KarenBravo]

Same sh1t......different pockets.

[steelepulse]

Yeah yeah heard it all before..............hand over brown envelope time again

New guys replacing the demolisher need to cover their costs of their new positions as well as the cost of those that appointed them to these positions.

[webfact]

DSI picks up Phuket land encroachment torch

Nattha Thepbamrung

Col Dutsadee Arayawuth examines an excavator found in June last year on one of the pieces of land annexed by a former vice-governor of Phuket. - Phuket News file photo

PHUKET: -- With the retirement of Department of National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) Director General Damrong Pidech, it seemed as though the investigation into encroachment in Phuket’s Sirinart Marine National Park had been suspended indefinitely.

Not so. Now the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has picked up the torch.

Pol Lt Col Prawut Wongseenil of the DSI revealed yesterday (February 17) in Bangkok that the DSI will use the revised Anti-Money-Laundering Law, which came into effect on February 2, to suppress businesses encroaching on the park.

Col Prawut said that the DSI had been asked by the DNP to check businesses that are suspected to be encroaching or holding illegal land papers for parts of the 60,000-rai park.

“The DNP presented the issue of encroachment in a meeting yesterday at which the Anti-Money-Laundering Office (AMLO) was also present,” he told The Phuket News

Three thousand rai of the park has already been issued with land papers, he said. Fourteen hotels and property developments have been built or are in the process of being built in areas believed to be in the park, and there have been applications from business people for land deeds for another 400 plots of land believed to be in the park.

“We have to find out more about who was really involved in the issue of illegal land papers because these papers went through many hands in the past.

“We have to be fair to the current owners of the land papers who were, in effect, cheated,” he said.

He explained that the law (which was revised after the international Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering placed Thailand on its black list) came into force only at the beginning of this month.

However, it can be applied retroactively against people or businesses already found to have encroached on a national park. Civil suits may also be brought against offenders.

He added that the law also applies to other land regarded as natural resources that cannot be used for personal benefit, such as mangrove forests or forest reserves belonging to the Royal Forest Department.

The Bangkok Post reported yesterday (February 17) that the DSI would also follow up on cases of illegal encroachment in various parts of Phuket that were initially uncovered by Col Dutsadee Arayawut and his investigators from the Public Anti-Corruption Commission.

That investigation, too, has lain fallow since Col Dutsadee was transferred to a new job chasing narcotics.

The Post quoted Pol Lt Col Somboon Sarasit, chief of the DSI’s Bureau of Special Crime 3, as saying that it is clear that rights documents for at least nine land plots in a forest reserve and a national park in Kathu district of Phuket were issued illegally.

These include large pieces of land annexed by two former vice-governors of Phuket and a retired permanent secretary of the Ministry of Interior.

The land involved, if it were sold, would fetch billions of baht.

Source: http://www.thephuket...torch-37153.php

-- The Phuket News 2013-02-18

[KarenBravo]

Maybe a better question would be who transferred Damrong and why, during such an important and high-profile investigation?

He was only transferred when he stated that he would ensure prosecutions no matter who, or, how connected the culprits were.

Suspicious?

[who]

KarenBravo

Maybe a better question would be who transferred Damrong and why, during such an important and high-profile investigation?

He was only transferred when he stated that he would ensure prosecutions no matter who, or, how connected the culprits were.

Suspicious?

--- Did you really ask WHY !?!

.

[who]

--- Did you really ask WHY !?!

.

[JetsetBkk]

KarenBravo

Maybe a better question would be who transferred Damrong and why, during such an important and high-profile investigation?

He was only transferred when he stated that he would ensure prosecutions no matter who, or, how connected the culprits were.

Suspicious?

--- Did you really ask WHY !?!

.

He also asked WHO.

But not in big green letters.