DSI looking for man who smuggled cold medicine out of country
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) is looking for a person who has been gathering cold medicine containing pseudo-ephedrine from six public hospitals and sending the pills over the border to a drug-making gang, DSI security case chief Pol Lt-Co
DSI is investigating Central Udon Thani Hospital, Uttaradit’s Thong Saen Khan Hospital, Si Sa Ket’s Phu Sing Hospital, Kalasin’s Kamalapisai Hospital and Chiang Mai’s Doi Lor Hospital and Hot Hospital.
It says it has had preliminary information from the Public Health Ministry that another 22 hospitals may be involved in the medicine-smuggling network.
A DSI special case committee would consider taking this case up tomorrow, after which a full investigation could proceed, he said. The DSI already had two vital pieces of information: medicine was being siphoned out of hospitals; and it was being amassed in Chiang Mai’s San Kamphaeng district to be sent to a drug gang in a neighbouring country.
But the DSI was not aware of the total quantity of medicine missing – the Health Ministry was checking on that, he said. The ministry was also responsible for punishing personnel involved in siphoning off the medicine.
He dismissed a report that the DSI would probe San Kamphaeng Hospital because of suspicion about the hospital’s orders for cold medicine.
In Kalasin, police investigating 350,000 “missing” pseudo-ephedrine cold pills at Kamalapisai Hospital initially found that a former Roi Et Hospital employee implicated by Sodcheun Withojit, a pharmacist who is a suspect, as the buyer of the missing medicine, had nothing to do with the crime. She also suffered from a serious health problem.
Police plan to summon Sodcheun and the hospital chief again, as well as some 10 others suspected of being members of the network, Kamalapisai police superintendent Pol Colonel Wanchai Ronnachatchai said yesterday.
Police found no evidence to confirm the accusation against the former Roi Et Hospital employee. She also explained that she left her job due to a health problem and her husband worked as a scavenger. She said she knew Sodcheun as he rented a house in the same part of Muang Roi Et but they weren’t very close. Her number was in the pharmacist’s cellphone as he had called to ask about her health. The last time they contacted each other was in early March. She said she didn’t do anything wrong and didn’t know why the pharmacist had accused her.
