Many paid off in fuel scam
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IT IS NOT only the police who have taken bribes from petrol smugglers in the far South - Army units, customs officials and civilian agents have benefited from the lucrative illicit business for years, according to intelligence reports acquired by high-ran
Those running the contraband petrol trade were paying tens of millions of baht each month to corrupt officials and included an influential Pattani-based businessman on the run, a local politician in Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district and a Pattani-based businessman who owns two companies, the reports said.
Also among them were the owner of a tanker ship and the owners of two companies based in the Malaysian state of Kelantan.
The reports have been received by defence and security authorities and National Council for Peace and Order.
Additional information has been based on the confessions of the subordinates of former Marine Police commander Maj-General Bunseub Phraithuen, who was arrested together with former Central Investigation Bureau chief Lt-General Pongpat Chayaphan in the ongoing high-profile corruption scandal.
But direct links between the petrol trade and insurgency in the far South have not been firmly established, although suppression of the reciprocal venture needs drastic and complete action if concrete evidence were found, a security source said.
Individuals on the petrol-trade side include a cooperative in one of the three southernmost provinces, a businessman in Narathiwat and a network of drug dealers, according to the reports.
The trade also includes a number of their relatives and associates, one of them a man in uniform once based in Pattani.
The reports detail the logistics of the petrol-smuggling operation, including the locations of tankers that dock either to unload the cargo or to take it out to sea along the Gulf of Thailand from Phetchaburi to Narathiwat.
Certain locations are given – areas not far from Koh Samui and Phang Nga off Surat Thani, Bang Saphan district in Prachuap Khiri Khan and mid-sea rendezvous off Songkhla, Nakhon Si Thammarat or further north in Prachuap Khiri Khan. Other areas are off Rayong and Trat.
The operation also involved a large number of fishing trawlers modified to carry 30,000-200,000 litres of contraband petrol, which was smuggled from a neighbouring country at half the price.
These trawlers offloaded the cargo near the shore and tanker trucks then distributed the petrol to service stations throughout the Southern region.
Corrupt officials included those operating checkpoints who turned a blind eye to these trucks and those involved in suppression who did the same in exchange for huge bribes paid regularly to them by the traders, the reports said.
