Dawn raids in Koh Samui by 700 police and soldiers

[webfact]

Dawn raids in Koh Samui by 700 police and soldiers

KOH SAMUI: -- This morning at 6am 700 police and army officers carried out a dawn raid in Koh Samui. During the raid 26individuals were targeted.

Soldiers armed with machine guns were lowered onto the island from helicopters as homes around the island were raided. Some homes were raided via the roof in scenes that looked like something out of an action movie. Many of the homes owners came out looking bewildered still dressed in night attire.

According to Thai news reports the move came after the very public execution of a prominent local businessman, the 49 year old man was gunned down while having dinner in a restaurant in the popular Fishemen’s village.

The shooting took place around 7-20pm during the village’s weekly walking street, hundreds of tourists were witness to the crime, authorities are gravely concerned that such acts will have a negative effect on tourism and are concerned about violent crimes on the island as a whole, specifically gun crime.

Ruengsri Travel in Bophut was among the targets this morning, however, little was recovered in the raid, only 2 bullets and a few training bullets.
However arrests have been made and an announcement is expected later today with regards to arrests made and hauls of drugs and weapons that were recovered in the raid.

-- Samui Times 2015-03-20

[colinneil]

Sledehammer to crack a nut !!

Somebodies been watching to many movies.

[harrry]

They now do not have to allocate a training budget. They do their advanced raid practices on live targets.

[animatic]

Not really too much force, I never even heard about this till thus afternoon.

Though the Mrs said there was a lot of police presence last night and the night before.

But usually just attributed to trying to catch yaba couriers.

Seems to me they wanted to sweep up a network all at once

with enough visible force to make armed resistance seem futile or fatal.

The nature if the assassination a short while back was so brazen and so public,

I think bringing the biggest hammer was a logical message bring sent to more

than just this network of sociopaths and gangsters, that there are new limits to

what society will tolerate.

With 1 suspect in custody and his perp walk reenactment and the name of his accomplice known,

they were able to target which network heads were behind it. And decided to really send a message,

that tourist business is worth far far more their their interacting squabbles for turf and influence.

[JoeLing]

About time .....

Now I'm just waiting for the announcement later today ...

The re-announcement tomorrow .....

Then clarification after tomorrow ....

[BigBadGeordie]

So 1 chap gets murdered and the "authorities" worry about the negative impact on tourism, and then, launch a full airbourne assault with 700 army an police personell. Oh course the later action will re-assure everyone!

[bkkcanuck8]

700 sounds like a lot, but it was a large operation...... and it is better to have too many than too few (Use of overwhelming force is better since people are less likely to try and use violence to resist - it is a tactic used by both police and military operations) -- i.e a person is less likely to shoot back if he sees 5 people pointing guns at him than one. Obviously, you want to synchronize all operations as to give the targets no warning, and you want to have teams to handle situations where your intelligence is wrong and they might be in another primary location than what your intelligence indicates he is actually (i.e. raid wrong location leaving a second site to be alerted to the raid at the first location).

Just hope that this does clean up the situation a little and give other fiefdoms on other islands run by mafia/political combinations.... if you don't clean it up.... someone else will.

As such, until I hear otherwise - I applaud the operation.

[Guest]

It is amusing to watch the TV peanut gallery struggle to find a problem with this.

Soldiers dropping from helicopters certainly looks like a command from very, very high up the command chain and possibly without the local uniformed protection agency ... being able to warn their employers.

It is absolutely some "Kick a** and take names" drill and if it nets real results ... look for more..."The buck stops here" action in the future.

You F with the bull ... you get the horns.

Someone went WAY over the line and the party has just begun.

[Briggsy]

The Phoney Civil War.

[eddie61]

The dead man must certainly have paid his dues to the powers that be, and the shooter was a cheap charlie.

Vengeance, will be swift to those who underpay!

[thhMan]

I wonder if they setup a booth for the Police to sit in and watch TV while the Military did their the Police work

[animatic]

If the network this appears to be connected to is as large as it looks, then 700 raiders is not outrageous.

They arrested 26 men, 700 / 26 is 28 men per suspect. But remember there were likely other people around those individuals, 1 to 3 likely, with unknown states of mind / rationalness, and the army / police could have reasonably expected more than twice the arrested targets at any location. With unknown fire power, and a likely will to shoot people to get their way.

I would say about the same crew that took a swing at Nakorn Si Thammarat's mafia leaders a few weeks back.

Hey boys while you're at it let's take down this mafia bleeding the toursit island too.

Sure thing boss!

[OmarZaidMD]

I've driven through Nakorn Si Thammarat twice and all my alarm bells went off. It's a devil's nest. Dunno what else to say but 'stay away'.

[JoeLing]

It is amusing to watch the TV peanut gallery struggle to find a problem with this.

Soldiers dropping from helicopters certainly looks like a command from very, very high up the command chain and possibly without the local uniformed protection agency ... being able to warn their employers.

It is absolutely some "Kick a** and take names" drill and if it nets real results ... look for more..."The buck stops here" action in the future.

You F with the bull ... you get the horns.

Someone went WAY over the line and the party has just begun.

Well, sure someone overstepped the line. Question is only,

who's line. Some very powerful "influential" families here in

the south who sure don't like to be stepped on their toes.

You say, "the party has just begun". Yeah would be very nice

and a bit of Island clean-up wouldn't harm the region here at

all but I recon, as usual, it's just a big warning shot.

Probably just a bit of power redistribution, then it's all back to

"normality"

[loonodingle]

There damned if they do and damned if they don't hey!!!!!

Its about time someone stood us to these Mafia groups and here we go ..... Prayut Stiley... Top Man... Hats off to you. Now go back to Koh Tao and sweep up the scum line along the beach. Start in Sairee.

[JOC]

Wrong island.........................

[Martyjustice]

Ferguson, Thailand

[spermwhale]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

So 1 chap gets murdered and the "authorities" worry about the negative impact on tourism, and then, launch a full airbourne assault with 700 army an police personell. Oh course the later action will re-assure everyone!

You do not know apparently how deep the mafia network stretches in Koh Samui. The whole place is run by local mobsters and nobody even farts without approval.

It is not the first time rival mafia members have killed one another on the island. It could be a huge sweep to root out the mob.

[Dibbler]

Paradise lost! The island has been run by mafia and their offspring fuelled by hot money since the late 90's. Haven't been there since 2001 and no plan to return.... it's good they are making an effort to clean out the dirty laundry though. Imagine they might find a few Interpol poster boys and girls if they look hard enough.

[Alwyn]

700 to target 26? 27 heavily armed personnel per one targeted person? Does seem a tadge like overkill. I wonder what the net result was?

[JoeLing]

Wrong island.........................

I think is actually just the right island to start the cleaning job, if

that's what it is. Pest control on the other islands will be so much

easier afterwards.

Although as I said before, I do not believe this is a far reaching

cleaning job. Just a bigger than usual warning shot and once

authority has been redistributed, everything will be back to the

usual.

[Carl64]

Fantastic, go in hard and fast. Maybe the mafia may start to get the message!

But a real shame that their first concern was the tourist industry!

[monkeycountry]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

So 1 chap gets murdered and the "authorities" worry about the negative impact on tourism, and then, launch a full airbourne assault with 700 army an police personell. Oh course the later action will re-assure everyone!

You do not know apparently how deep the mafia network stretches in Koh Samui. The whole place is run by local mobsters and nobody even farts without approval.

It is not the first time rival mafia members have killed one another on the island. It could be a huge sweep to root out the mob.

And neither do you.

Big public companies from Bangkok and some local ones run the business end of Samui, and they fart all they want.

But yes some local gangster types try to fight over the usual grey area businesses such as bars, taxis, jetskis, drugs and to an extend real estate.

[monkeycountry]

Paradise lost! The island has been run by mafia and their offspring fuelled by hot money since the late 90's. Haven't been there since 2001 and no plan to return.... it's good they are making an effort to clean out the dirty laundry though. Imagine they might find a few Interpol poster boys and girls if they look hard enough.

so you haven't even been there for 14 years yet know all about who runs it?

I bet you didn't even know back then :-)

[Lupatria]

Grenada comes to mind. I wonder if this will end up in the history books as "the heroic invasion of Koh Samui". It's always an advantage to have a sense for proportions 700:to what? If you wanna do it right get training from the french foreign legion.

[oneday]

700 / 26 = 26.92 people to catch each target.

I just want to know what the .92 person looked like.

[SOTIRIOS]

.........'bout time.....

[dom samui]

Everybody knew since yesterday evening that army was coming. Helico was noisy enough...

[Bignose]

This is indeed good news for us law abiding residents of Samui, was it an "over the top" reaction as some here state?

In no way was this an over the top operation, neither was it a sledge hammer to crack a nut, the point has now been made and the order from very high has been given to start to clean out the thugs and mafia's.

Other's have made the cynical point that this is a temporary situation and that it will soon be business as usual, I disagree. Perhaps I am too optimistic and expect too much, but the present government do not give me the impression this is a short term exercise. I believe they are serious about dismantling the present organizations, they recognize the real and actual cost to the Thai society and economy, that cost is huge and drains the financial and social resources of a country that cannot afford it.

Yes I may be overly optimistic but I look forward to where this is going, it has to be better than the status qua...

[ToddinChonburi]

Yes I agree execellent training exercise. Getting tuned up to go after some of the bigger pray soon I hope. I wonder who is pissing themselves at the moment wondering who is next.