25 PRISON OFFICIALS FACE TRANSFER
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The Corrections Department yesterday slapped 25 prison officials with transfer orders as punishment for allegedly allowing or condoning drug-trafficking operations at the Nakhon Si Thammarat Prison.
Prison warden Surapon Kaewparadai said these officials would be transferred to several different correctional facilities and will be replaced by 17 officials from other divisions.
The transfers were ordered after authorities found that there were grounds to believe that these prison officials had passed items such as cellphones on to inmates, who then used them for drug trafficking.
Surapon said he expected 27 prisoners, considered mafia bosses, to be transferred out of his facility soon.
“We are also compiling a list of some 200 or so influential inmates who need close monitoring.
Sources say that they are involved in the smuggling of banned items into the prison,” he said.
Meanwhile, Narcotics Control Office Region 5 chief Wichai Chaimongkhon voiced concerns that networks of drug traffickers operating in the North and South were getting better linked.
“When drug convicts meet in prison, they expand their network,” he explained.
Wichai’s office has jurisdiction over the North.
On Monday, a joint operation involving officials from Wichai’s office led to the arrest of two suspects from the South and the seizure of illicit drugs worth more than Bt100 million in Chiang Rai’s Mae Chan district. The haul included 21 kilograms of heroin and 15kg of crystal methamphetamine. The suspects were identified as Abdulrorning Mayading, 40, from Pattani and Maning Hayeemadahae, 31, from Narathiwat.
The men told the police that they had each been paid Bt100,000 to pick up the drugs in Chiang Rai and deliver them to a client in Songkhla. They said they had done this many times before.
Provincial Police Region 5 deputy commissioner Maj-General Chamnan Ruadreaw said an ongoing investigation suggested that this cache of drugs had been meant for Malaysia.
He said Abdulrorning and Maning were related to some figures in the deep South, but it was still unclear if their network had anything to do with insurgents. “We will contact the Provincial Police Region 9 and the Narcotics Control Office Region 9 for further investigations,” Chamnan said.
