DSI takes over coldpills probe
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Investigation targets 22 hospitals where unusually large orders of pseudoephedrine-based medicine were placed
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has taken over the probe into the theft from state hospitals of medicine that contains pseudoephedrine.Millions of missing cold pills are suspected to have been stolen to produce methamphetamine in nearby countries.
Pol Lt Colonel Pong-in Inthornkhao, who heads the DSI Bureau of Security Crime, said primary investigations showed 45 million tablets containing pseudoephedrine had disappeared from medical facilities over the past few years.
“We will trace where these medicines were sent and whether they ended up in the hands of drug manufacturers,” he said.
The DSI investigation would target 22 hospitals in many provinces including Bangkok, Chon Buri, Chiang Mai and Nakhon Pathom. These state medical facilities have reportedly ordered an unusually high number of cold pills in recent years which contain pseudoephedrine.
At its meeting yesterday, the DSI board issued a resolution to make the embezzlement of medicine that contains pseudoephedrine a crime it has jurisdiction over.
“The DSI will be able to investigate such cases efficiently,” Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung said after he chaired the DSI-board meeting yesterday.
DSI chief Tharit Pengdit said |his agency could use special measures such as telephone tapping and infiltration into electronic databases.
“We believe the investigation will not take long. We will collaborate with various agencies,” he said.
After the DSI board move, |police began transferring information relating to such cases. Arrest warrants have already been |issued to some pharmacists charged with stealing pseudoephedrine-based medicine from state hospitals.
On Sunday, the Public Health Ministry said its ongoing probe suggested seven government |officials, mostly pharmacists, had committed grave disciplinary offences.
“We will determine who are involved. The chiefs of divisions and state hospitals will be held responsible in criminal proceedings too unless they prove they had already taken proper measures for close supervision,” Tharit said. Those cleared of criminal proceedings could still be subject to disciplinary action taken separately by the Health Ministry.
Chalerm believed a big network was behind the embezzling of cold pills from state hospitals.
“Our legal team is checking whether the hospital officials involved in the embezzlement should be considered accomplices in the manufacture of methamphetamines if they knew full well that this medicine would be used for this purpose,” he said.
The inventory check on medicine at state hospitals started after police found a huge amount of tablets that contain pseudoephedrine at some locations in Chiang Mai last month.
An arrest warrant for Udon Karnsomprot was then issued because there was evidence he brought boxes containing the medicine tablets from Thong Saen Khan Hospital in Uttaradit to Chiang Mai.
The hospital’s pharmacist, Thirapong Iam-orn, was charged with illegally selling the cold medicine.
Out in the far Northeast, 4.5 million tablets of the cold-drugs had also gone missing from Udon Thani Hospital. Its pharmacist, Somchai sae Khow, is now on the run.
According to Public Health Minister Witthaya Buranasiri, his ministry’s ongoing probe found there were irregularities at six hospitals.
An informed source said these hospitals were Udon Thani Hospital, Thong Saeng Khan Hospital, Phusing Hospital in Si Sa ket, Doi Lor Hospital in Chiang Mai, Hot Hospital in Chiang Mai, and Kamalasai Hospital in Kalasin.
“The same probe has cleared nine others and is looking into alleged irregularities at three others,” Witthaya said yesterday.
Chalerm said apart from pseudoephedrine, there were some other substances in medicines that could be used for the methamphetamine production.
“But they are less dangerous,” he said.
