Thai Cabinet approves appointment of new DSI director-general

The Cabinet has approved Pol Capt Piya Raksakul for the post of director-general of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), currently held by Pol Maj Yutthana Praedam, as part of six senior Justice Ministry appointments.

The meeting was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn in place of Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, who was on an assignment in the United States.

The other five appointees were:

• Pol Lt Col Phongton Thanyasiri as director-general of the Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection.
• Komol Prompeng as an inspector-general at the Justice Ministry.
• Tharinee Saengsawang as an inspector-general at the Justice Ministry.
• Pol Lt Col Prawut Wongsinil as a deputy permanent secretary for justice.
• Nuntarath Tepdolchai as a deputy permanent secretary for justice.

The DSI leadership had long been considered one of the first senior positions likely to change under the Bhumjaithai-led government.

Piya, then director-general of the Department of Probation and a former long-serving DSI official, chaired Subcommittee No. 36, which was appointed by the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) to consider the alleged Senate election collusion case.

A joint ECT-DSI panel, known as Committee No. 26, had resolved that legal proceedings should be brought against 229 people said to be involved.

Subcommittee No. 36, however, voted to dismiss the complaints against the same group.

According to the report, those named included leading Bhumjaithai Party figures.

It also referred to a photograph showing Piya welcoming Anutin at Buriram airport in March 2026 as the prime minister travelled to a MotoGP World Championship event.

Yutthana was widely regarded as being close to Pol Col Tawee Sodsong, the former justice minister and Prachachart Party leader.

He had spent much of his civil-service career at the DSI and became its director-general after Tawee was appointed justice minister under the governments of Srettha Thavisin and Paetongtarn Shinawatra.

During Tawee’s tenure, Yutthana was assigned responsibility for the alleged Senate election collusion case and chaired a committee investigating possible secret-society and money-laundering offences linked to the Senate election.

The case made substantial progress towards the end of the Paetongtarn government, including the collection of evidence and the questioning of key witnesses.

Yutthana remained in office through the first and second Anutin cabinets after Anutin became Thailand’s 32nd prime minister and Pol Lt Gen Rutthaphon Naowarat, described in the source as “directly connected to Buriram”, became justice minister.

However, the investigations appeared to become less active than during Tawee’s tenure.

Some observers believed Yutthana’s continued tenure reflected a strategy attributed to the “blue camp”: “capturing an enemy and changing their colour”.

The approach was said to have been used previously to turn former officials against the opposing side, or to “use the enemy’s people to destroy the enemy”.

The tactic appeared less effective with Yutthana, while figures aligned with Bhumjaithai became increasingly wary of him.

Some observers also questioned why information from Committee No. 26 regularly appeared in the hands of the opposition, particularly the People’s Party and Internet Dialogue for Law Reform, or iLaw.

The information was also said to have reached Tawee, who frequently used it or referred to it in debates and other remarks.

Figures aligned with Bhumjaithai were convinced that the information could not have emerged on its own and that the opposition could not have uncovered it without someone inside the DSI or the ECT passing it on.

Yutthana was among the first to come under suspicion because of his previous ties to Tawee, one of the leading figures driving the case.

Before the annual transfer season ended, reports circulated that Yutthana could be moved as punishment for “not changing colour”.

In the report’s political framing, the appointment marked the “blue camp” changing players and sending in a figure described as directly connected to it.

A report also said Yutthana would later be appointed to a Level 11 civil-service post or as a special expert attached to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Piya holds a Bachelor of Laws with honours from Sripatum University and a Master of Arts in Political Science–Justice Administration from Kasetsart University.

His previous DSI positions included:

• Deputy director-general from 2022 to 2024.
• Director of the Bureau of Financial, Banking and Money Laundering Crime from 2021 to 2022.
• Director of the Bureau of Special Case Management from 2017 to 2021.

He currently serves as a director of PTT Public Company Limited.

He was also a director of Thai Oil Public Company Limited from 2023 to 2025 and of the Metropolitan Waterworks Authority from 2024 to 2025.

Source: Bangkokbiznews