Move to seize assets

The Anti-Laundering Office agreed yesterday to seize assets of former Central Investigation Bureau chief Lt-General Pongpat Chayaphan worth more than Bt1 billion. They include several items of newly discovered jewellery and bundles of foreign banknotes.

AMLO secretary-general Seehanart Prayoonrat said all items would be divided into two groups - depreciative items that would be auctioned in January and those that could last. A review of all items would be undertaken and the final list would be made public in February.

Among other newly discovered or newly publicised items is an unspecified artefact that Seehanart said was the only one in the world, 120 kilograms of silver pellets, Bt3.9 million in Thai banknotes, a number of diamonds and other gems in necklaces and various decoratives.

AMLO would also further inspect a number of land title deeds, worth around Bt500 million in initial estimates, and said they would also be seized in the near future if found to have been acquired with ill-gotten money. AMLO officials would soon meet with Pongpat in detention to notify him of pending seizures and to allow him to defend the sources of those subject to seizures.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission said yesterday that police could take criminal actions against Pongpat and his racket members independently and separately under the Criminal Procedural Code from a process the NACC is undertaking, NACC member Vicha Mahakun said.

For the lists of assets seized from Pongpat’s 11 homes, the NACC would also use them in its own investigation into unlawful acquisition of the times allegedly committed by Pongpat and his racket members.

Vicha was responding to a Royal Thai Police statement sent to the NACC about it wanting to take criminal action against Pongpat and his men with various offences on its own, without proceeding with other formal indictment of the suspects for the NACC to take further action against the suspects under the NACC jurisdiction.

The RTP list of offences details the crimes Pongpat and his men have committed – lese majeste with slanderous and false statements, granting gambling licences without permission, demanding and taking bribes from fuel smugglers in the far South, selling police posts in the CIB (that Pongpat headed).

RTP spokesman Lt-General Prawut Thawornsiri said all offences regarding lese majeste under Article 112 of the Criminal Code were being handled by the police and likely to be done within a 48-day time frame. The stripping of Pongpat and other police suspects’ ranks had not been considered by the RTP yet – that was a separate process from criminal action against them, he said.