He claimed the management dispute had already been solved after the disputing council members had stepped down, while the university’s administration and students’ classes were being conducted as normal.

Meanwhile, Chiang Mai-based Maejo University’s former rector Anon Thiangtrong – who heads the committee – said they would table the university’s issues at the Office of Higher Education Commission on February 9.

The committee was created after the Education Ministry decided to use its power under Article 86(4) of the Private Higher Educational Institution Act to run the university in the wake of prolonged management disputes.

As for the former executives’ move to get the management power back, Anon said the panel had not studied the problems enough to solve them, but would have the power returned to Abac as soon as the issues were sorted.

Affirming that police would ensure justice to all sides and was gathering evidence and interviewing all related parties, Sanit said the investigating team would conclude the case next week. Admitting there were a limited number of investigators at each precinct hence some investigators had to handle nearly 100 cases each instead of the regulation-stated standard of one investigator with a maximum of 70 cases, Sanit said. Some lower-ranking investigators might feel uneasy and nervous if the case reports weren’t complete, he said

He said supervisors should check and provide advice when problems arise, so Sanit would discuss this further with related units of the bureau.

Stress stemmed working on the 204 car-seizure case allegedly led to a Thung Song Hong policeman Pol Captain Thawee Meunrak’s suicide last week – for which the Metropolitan Police Area 2 earlier had launched a fact-finding probe to determine if that suspicion were true.

As DSI had sent a letter to both institutes to ask for progress on the action against the controversial abbot, Paisit said the agency was informed that NOB would notify DSI of its action result within this month. Affirming that the DSI letter wasn’t to point out the monk’s wrongdoings, he said the agency just urged NOB to proceed, or else NOB could be guilty of a state office refraining from performing its duties.

Among several accusations Phra Dhammachayo faced was the allegation that he received money from a key suspect in the Credit Union Khlong Chan embezzlement case.

The join operation on January 23 saw a smuggle died and two others arrested in Bann Pong, Rattanawapi, NongKhai.

Officers from the Mekong River Unit, the Royal Thai army and the Natural Resources and Environment Crime Division, acting on information supplied by Watchdog Thailand, the investigative and suppression unit of Soi Dog Foundation, stormed a small boat moored at the river bank in Rattanawapi at 3pm.

Iaan, 27, a Laos resident from Baan Tauy, Meung Tha Phra Baat, Bolikamsai was loading sacks of live pangolins onto the boat when the joint forces stormed the mooring point.

Two other smugglers were arrested at the scene without a struggle, whilst dived into the water in a bid to escape arrest. His body was later found floating in the water. A post mortem confirmed he drowned.

The joint forces found 15 live pangolins at the scene, which were later handed over to the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, for return to the wild.

The pangolins were destined for Vietnam, where their meat is considered a delicacy, and their scales are used to make Chinese medicine. Their total black market value in Vietnam would have been around Bt350,000.

The raid comes on the heels of a similar wildlife interception operation on November 28 2015, again in Rattanawapi, Nongkhai.

A joint operation by the Mekong River Unit, the Royal Thai Navy, the Royal Thai Army, the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Division, the Royal Thai police and the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, again acting on intelligence supplied to them by Soi Dog Foundation via Watchdog Thailand, intercepted a small truck at Rattanawapi, Nongkhai heading to a smugglers crossing point on the Mekong River.

The driver and passengers avoided arrest by abandoning the vehicle. Authorities found over a ton of reptiles in the truck, including 360 cobras, 100 King cobras, 39 Asian Box turtles and 175 Elongated tortoises. The black market value of the consignment was estimated at around 1.4 million baht. It is thought the consignment had already been purchased by dealers in China and Vietnam.

Better known for its work in fighting the illegal Thai dog meat trade, Soi Dog Foundation plans to share intelligence regarding commonly used smugglers border crossing points between Thailand and Laos. This will also extend to intelligence regarding specific individual smuggling operations.

John Dalley, co-founder and President of Soi Dog Foundation said: “Our business is about stopping dogs being shipped from Thailand to Laos. Sometimes the intelligence we get regarding dog smuggling activities actually turns out to be related to other illegal operations, such as rosewood, drugs, or in this case, wildlife. In these situations we are happy to share all information with the authorities.”

His comment followed a report that 204 cars worth Bt60 million had been impounded from a Lak Si district mall’s parking lot since November by Bangkok’s Thung Song Hong police.

In practice, after a police investigation, they [the police] will contact hire-purchase companies to collect the seized vehicles because the company is the real owner under the leasing contracts. Only after the borrowers pay up all their debts to the leasing companies, the companies will transfer the vehicles back to the borrowers.

If borrowers do not pay their debts on time, the hire-purchase lender will contact them under the debt-collection process. If the debt is not settled, the lenders can take legal action and ask police to return the vehicles to the banks, Anuchart explained.

Surat Leelataviwat, managing director of Kasikorn Leasing, said frequently hire-purchase companies found that borrowers had taken vehicles to others who were not financial institutions for refinancing.

“When the banks give an auto loan to car buyers, they [the banks] face the risk the borrowers will [later] take the vehicles for refinancing with others, [like pawn shops.]”

Lenders in such a situation will repossess the vehicles and file legal proceedings against the borrowers. The repossessed cars will be sold to other customers interested in buying used cars.

Rungnapat Thongkua is the widow of Pol Captain Thawee Meunrak whose suicide was believed to have stemmed from stress over a car-seizure case. Yesterday, she confirmed that Thawee had shot himself in their flat in front of her and their child because of stress from work.

“He complained to me all the time that he was stressed out from work, because he was constantly scolded and pressured. Since he started working on the car-seizure case, he had cumulative stress.

“This [suicide] directly stemmed from his work; he was pushed to file cases as ‘these people and those people’ wanted their cars back,” Rungnapat said.

“We will check sellers in Bangkok first to determine if they are our registered vendors,” Chalongrat Nakartit, director of the GLO, said yesterday. “We will then check vendors in all other provinces.”

Reselling to agents is prohibited because it is a major cause of price gouging.

The government has vowed to stamp out overcharging, ordering authorities to ensure that lottery tickets are sold at most at their face value of Bt80 a pair.

However, they are still more often than not going for up to Bt100 a pair on the street.

Some vendors complain the tickets cost them just Bt71.4 when bought directly from the GLO, but Bt77-Bt78 if they have to get them from a dealer. In that case, they often have to charge customers more to cover the higher expense.

There are grounds to suspect that some registered vendors are selling lottery tickets under their quota to agents instead of consumers.

To boost the chances of lottery tickets going to actual retail vendors instead of wholesalers, the GLO recently devised new channels for people to register as lottery vendors.

After registering, they can buy tickets via ATMs, bank counters and the Internet.

The latest round of lottery-ticket sales for these vendors took place yesterday morning. For the February 16 draw, all 22.6 million tickets were booked within 21 minutes. For the March 1 draw, all 40 million tickets were gone in just 27 minutes.

“The previous time, only 46,596 vendors got the tickets via such channels. But this time, up to 62,614 vendors got the tickets,” Chalongrat said.

In Phitsanulok, Amporn Klinchui, 64, said she and her daughter had to sleep overnight in front of an ATM in the hope of securing a supply of lottery tickets directly from the GLO.

She was not the only one resorting to such drastic stratagems. Some other vendors in the province also did the same thing, camping out at ATMs. In Roi Et, Boonsuan Bureerat from neighbouring Maha Sarakham said he came to this province to be the first in line to use a ATM when lottery-ticket reservations opened at 8.15am. “But I couldn’t do it with this ATM,” he said.

At a bank branch near this ATM, nearly 30 vendors succeeded in snapping up tickets without problems.

This bank started serving them at 8.30am but could handle transactions fast. “All lottery vendors who showed up could complete their transactions partly because other customers kindly agreed to let them go first,” said Boondarika Sompong, the branch manager.

 

The two men – scuba-diving instructor Sergei Dmitriev, 30, whose left leg was severed, and his compatriot Dmitry Kurynov, 48, who sustained a serious injury to his left leg – were rushed to Koh Pho Phi Hospital after which they were transferred to Krabi Hospital.

Boat captain Adisorn Denmumud-oui, 27, said he was taking 30 tourists from Ao Nang to visit Ao Maya when his two-engine boat hit something in the water. So he drove it in reverse to check it and found the two injured tourists. He said he didn’t see the tourists in the water.

These two suspects, along with at least three other suspects, killed a “friend” and gang-raped his pregnant girlfriend last week.

During the young man’s funeral yesterday, his uncle told reporters that they would ask the Lawyers Council of Thailand to help with their request to have the two suspects’ case be transferred from the Juvenile and Family Court to the provincial court.

The uncle also called for police to continue investigating the case, as he believes there are more accomplices than the five currently in custody. The family will also join Thai celebrity Panadda Wongphudee’s social campaign to object to a pardon for rape-murder convicts.

Meanwhile, the Srinagarindra superintendent Pol Colonel Wichai Wichayanareupol said the case should be concluded and passed onto public prosecutors in a month.

He added that though the female accomplice, who was arrested on Tuesday, maintains her innocence, saying she was merely at the scene to deliver food. The other four suspects in custody have already confessed and re-enacted the crime. The woman and two suspects were taken to court for court-issued detention order yesterday.

Brazilian programmer and website designer Carlos Augusto Saenz Lopes de Meida, 37, will initially face the charge of forging and using a forged passport. He was accused of conspiring with a transnational gang to steal a damaged person’s information to forge a passport and visa stamps in a bid to withdraw his money from banks. Also presented was other evidence including the fake Italian passport, 12 credit cards, two phones, one computer notebook and two bank account books.

The suspect reportedly used the fake passport to open an account at a local bank on Silom Road and tried to cash three cheques, claiming he worked as a financial adviser and wished to wire money to buy a property and invest in a business in Thailand. However, the bank staff suspected the passport was fake and alerted Immigration Police to investigate. Police now looking for more accomplices, including the foreign gang that provided him with the fake passport.