Drug dealers nabbed in prison crackdown
Twenty-six drug-dealing inmates at the Nakhon Si Thammarat Prison have been relocated to a high-security facility in Ratchaburi, under a crackdown by the Corrections Department to tackle the long-standing problem of drugs in prisons.
In related news, a workshop on suppression of the illegal-drugs trade comprising justice ministers from all 10 Asean countries and high-ranking anti-narcotics agents is being held today at the Shangri La hotel, Bangkok, at 4pm.
Following the earlier transfer of 25 prison guards suspected of aiding drug dealing at Nakhon Si Thammarat Prison, 17 guards have been drafted in as replacements. Head of the prison Suraphol Kaewpharadai said that number was too few to deal with the workload.
Department standards call for 170 guards per 3,500 inmates at this facility, but there are now just 155 guards for the 5,000 inmates.
A team of department commandos entered three maximum-security areas at the Nakhon Si Thammarat Prison at dawn yesterday and snatched the 26 inmates, bundling them in confinement suits. A mobile phone was found concealed in the cell of one inmate.
Provincial police chief Pol Maj-General Ronnarong Saikaew estimated that Bt1 billion had circulated in drug rackets at the prison, on top of the Bt70 million detected by police investigators.
Earlier, police in Surat Thani seized a cache of war weapons thought to belong to a drugs gang active in the deep South and possibly Nakhon Si Thammarat.
Two suspects were arrested in possession of the items, which included four assault rifles with serial numbers registered to the military and two handguns.
Police said one of the suspects, named as Pramual Homprakob, confessed to working with inmates at Khlong Prem prison in Nonthaburi in a racket that also covered drug-dealing in Nakhon Si Thammarat prison.
