Military ‘filed GT200-related lawsuits a long time ago’
ALL MILITARY units have taken legal action against their suppliers of GT200 bomb/narcotics detectors after they were found not to work.
“The Defence Ministry started legal proceedings after their overseas sales representatives were convicted of fraud around 2013,” Defence Ministry spokesman Lt-General Kongcheep Tantravanich said on Thursday.
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He was speaking up after a Bangkok court on Wednesday convicted Avia Satcom Company and its top executive of fraud for supplying the ineffective GT200 devices and related supplies to the Royal Aide-De-Camp Department.
“Units in the armed forces bought the devices at different times. So, they filed the lawsuits separately and at different times too,” Kongcheep explained.
If the military wins the criminal lawsuits, they too will be able to sue for compensation, he added.
Defence Minister General Prawit Wongsuwon, who is also deputy prime minister overseeing security affairs, has already instructed all relevant units to expedite the cases, said Deputy Defence Minister General Chaichan Changmongkol,
When asked about the scandal, Prawit on Thursday maintained that the armed forces did nothing wrong in purchasing the useless devices.
“At that time, our testing teams said the devices worked,” he said.
The GT200 bomb detectors have turned out to be a global scam, with fraudsters having sold the devices to several countries before their fraud was exposed and confirmed.