Tycoon missing
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Govt critic Ekkayuth feared abducted; last seen late Thursday; hard-disk stolen
Anti-Thaksin businessman Ekkayuth Anchanbutr has been missing since Friday night and his lawyer and relatives suspect he might have been abducted.
Suwat Apaipak, Ekkayuth’s lawyer, told reporters yesterday the businessman, who has openly opposed the Pheu Thai government, was last seen at a restaurant in the Saphan Kwai area on Thursday night and was heard over the phone for the last time on Friday.
Suwat said Ekkayuth had dinner with a few friends at the Kratae Kitchen restaurant at 10.30pm on Thursday and might have been abducted at 11pm that night.
Suwat said Ekkayuth did not show up for an appointment to play golf with friends on Friday and when one of the friends called him, he answered and said he was busy with a senior person and had to cancel the golf session.
Ekkayuth’s sister, Arunee Sunthornpat, 51, filed a complaint with the Crime Suppression Division at 1pm yesterday, saying her brother could not be reached by phone since 8pm on Friday.
Arunee told police that Ekkayuth called his sister, Supaporn Waenlor, at 9am on Friday, telling her to give a chequebook to a driver of the company. The driver was told to meet Ekkayuth at Gate 8 of Suvarnabhumi Airport.
But when the company driver went to the airport, he did not see the businessman, only Ekkayuth’s personal driver, identified as Santiparp Phetduang. He saw Ekkayuth’s van parked near Gate 7.
Santiparp took the chequebook and told the company driver to wait for 45 minutes.
He returned with three cheques for Bt5 million signed by Ekkayuth and the company driver was told to cash the cheques at Siam Commercial Bank’s Town in Town branch.
Initially, the bank would not allow the cheques to be cashed because Ekkayuth had signed the wrong date – but bank officials called him and eventually allowed the driver to take out Bt5 million in cash.
The driver returned to the airport but Ekkayuth was still not there. Santiparp turned up to take the money and left the scene in the van, Arunee told police. The personal driver is also not traceable.
Suwat said Ekkayuth’s abductors also went to the businessman’s house to steal a computer connected to his security camera system. “They may be a big gang because they went to his house to eliminate the evidence,” Suwat said.
He said relatives found Ekkayuth’s house door open at 8pm on Friday and the computer’s hard disk, which recorded feeds from security cameras, was missing.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Pol Lt-General Khamronwit Thupkrajang said Ekkayuth’s relatives filed a complaint with police at the Wang Thonglang Police Station on Saturday midnight.
Khamronwit said he had instructed police to speed up the investigation.
“I have instructed the investigators to check it. Officials concerned will hold a meeting at 10.30am tomorrow [Monday] to check the facts,” Khamronwit said.
Parnthep Pongpuapan, the spokesman of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, said he had not yet been informed of Ekkayuth’s disappearance.
Ekkayuth has lately attacked former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra on his Thai Insider website and Facebook fan page. He made headlines last year when he alleged on his website that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra skipped a House meeting to meet businessmen at the Four Seasons Hotel.
After his disappearance was reported on TV and social media, several of Ekkayuth’s supporters went to his Facebook fan page to post messages showing their concern for him.
Several high-profile people have gone missing, including Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelapajit in 2004, who has been pronounced dead legally.
