Police also seized a Toyota fortuner the suspects used in the crime. It was taken to a police unit for forensic officials to collect evidence.

It is still unclear the motive of the killing, police source said. The suspects were taken to Pang Nga province where they are believed to dump weapons and destroy evidence.

The same police source said that most of the suspects were native of Pang Nga.

The country was shocked last week with the massacre of eight family members at a residence of a village headman in Krabi’s Ao Luek district. The victims included the village headman himself and three young members of the family.

Amnart Chotchai, director of the Office of the Attorney-General’s International Affairs Department, revealed that Thai authorities had been informed about the verdict of a court in California to extradite the ex-monk.

He is wanted in Thailand on charges of fraud, sexual harassment against a juvenile, and money laundering.

Amnart said that Wirapol still has the right to appeal to a higher US court, and the Thai officials will have to wait until next week to see if that happens.

“After we get him back to Thailand, he will be taken to DSI for interrogation and informed about his charges, and then he will be transferred to Office of the Attorney General [before he appears in] court.

“More detail about the prosecution of his cases will be disclosed to the media soon,” Amnart said.

Efforts to extradite Luang Pu Nenkham have been ongoing since last year after a request from the DSI to the Office of the Attorney General.

The Office of the Attorney- General worked closely with US authorities until the court in California permitted the extradition.

Thailand and the US have a criminal extradition treaty.

Not only does he face charges for the criminal offences of fraud, sexual harassment against a juvenile, and money laundering, Luang Pu Nenkham has also been sued in the Civil Court for money laundering.

The Office of the Attorney-General has asked the court to seize his assets and those of eight other alleged conspirators, totalling Bt40 million.

Luang Pu Nenkham was once a famous monk and the abbot of Wat Pa Khanti Dhamma Monastery in Si Sa Ket.

He fled to the US in 2013 after he was found to have violated many religious rules and was forced to leave the monkhood.

“I was only eight years old when I first saw a child become a victim of sexual exploitation, and I could do nothing. Since then I realised that my life’s goal is to help these children,” Weerawan Mosby said.

She is one of the eight nominated human rights defenders from around the world honoured in the United States, and has received the TIP Report Hero Acting to End Modern Slavery Award.

Founder and director of HUG Project, Weerawan spoke of her six years of work helping child victims of human trafficking and the sex trade. She still carries on the fight for children’s rights and to end human trafficking.

“From my work experience, the problems of human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children are still severe in Thailand. With the more convenient communication on the Internet, the criminals can get to the children and procure them more easily,” she explained.

“Since my organisation is better organised every year, we have come across more and more worrying cases of trafficking of children to the sex industry and cases of paedophilia. In the end, when facing these evil practices, we are all confronted with a choice: do nothing or do something.”

Though based in Chiang Mai, Weerawan’s team provides nationwide help for child victims and closely cooperates with Thailand Internet Crimes against Children unit of the Royal Thai Police to deter online crimes against children.

“So far, our organisation has worked on 100 cases of child-trafficking, and around 30 cases have gone to court,” she said.

Though perhaps best known for their pro-active approach of strong intervention, Weerawan said her organisation also takes a “defensive” approach, raising people’s awareness of the issues. They also teach children to guard against becoming ensnared by human trafficking and the sex trade.

“Technology is the double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can be a tool used by traffickers to prey on innocent children, but on the other hand, it can be the easy-access platform to educate people about this problem,” Weerawan said.

“We are also trying to get schools to teach about how to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of human trafficking and the sex trade, and we encourage schools to set up monitoring systems to find the students who are in trouble and to help them.”

Weerawan stressed that the most important thing in helping child victims was to understand what they have gone through and to support them. “Many people still have the wrong conception about victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking. They mistakenly perceive the children as having willingly put themselves at risk and blame them, but instead we should sympathise with these children and help them to get back to normal life,” she said.

Weerawan is determined to continue her work helping children, and cooperating with police and fellow human rights groups to stop this crime against minors in Thailand.

“Human trafficking is not only a crime against individuals, but also against human rights and human dignity,” she added.

Details of the mediation centre’s approach were revealed at the official opening ceremony on July 6, a date coinciding with the 16th anniversary celebration of the NHRC.

Screening starts right from beginning with the mediation centre avoiding the most serious human rights violations, which will continue to move through more traditional processes of evaluation and address. Complaints about sexual violation and harassment, violence against children, and criminal offences that must be dealt with legally – in addition to other cases the NHRC regulations deem “non-negotiable” – will not be mediated.

At stage one screening, the NHRC’s initial investigation of cases filed for it to probe, they would learn whether the involved party wanted settlement. If so, the case would be passed to the centre’s sub-committee to decide whether the case is appropriate for mediation, noted NHRC commissioner Angkhana Neelapaijit.

The settlement would be facilitated and handled by the NHRC-assigned individual or a committee comprising legal experts and mediation-trained NHRC officials.

Establishment of the mediation centre follows the “Paris principles” relating to the status and processes of national institutions for the protection and promotion of human rights, says lecturer Naparat Kranrattanasuit of Mahidol University’s Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies. The centre would also only handle the lesser legal offences such as those related to trades, libel and intrusion, Naparat said. “Such cases’ mediation isn’t just in terms of compensation payout figures, but also addresses the victim’s feelings and human dignity,” said Naparat.

“In a case where a person suffers discrimination treatment due to poverty or lack of social position, both sides must discuss why such rights violations took place. This in important and could pave the way to reconciliation. The mediation also can prevent recurrence,” she added.

Naparat gives an example from last year, when a man sought neck pain treatment from a public hospital and asked twice for a CT scan, but the doctor deemed it unnecessary. As the patient’s pain worsened to arm numbness and immobility, he sought treatment from another hospital, which diagnosed him with a serious neck-bone problem, said Naparat.

The man demanded compensation from the first facility and filed a complaint to the NHRC over the right to get good medical treatment. The case’s mediation led to both sides really discussing the problem and truly putting it to rest. The plaintiff had his chance to express his perspective, and the doctors listened and accepted the need to improve services and prevent recurrence, as well as paying some compensation, Naparat said.

Former NHRC commissioner Dr Niran Pitakwatchara warned that a mediation process must be carefully done after the following three important steps had been completed:

1. The NHRC must investigate to determine if an alleged rights violation really took place and reveal to the public who had violated whose human rights so as to prevent any doubt about whether there was collusion;

2. The punishment must be given to the violator for the sake of fairness or justice so the NHRC – having no authority to directly punish them – could report on the course of justice to those involved; and

3. The procedure must not violate the victim’s rights and entitlements for remedial measures.

Then, the final step could proceed to let both sides study the offence and for the victim to decide whether to press charges and launch lawsuits, Niran said.

“The worst thing is a mediation without proper steps to check what went on, but just having the victims accept compensation money to end the case. It will be no different from accommodating a hush money payment,” he warned.

Alexander Cazes, 26, hanged himself with a towel on Wednesday, just an hour before a meeting with the public prosecutor over proceedings for his extradition to the United States in connection with criminal charges there.

Cazes had been detained since July 5 after he was arrested at a residence in Thawee Watthana district by officers acting on an extradition request from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He had reportedly lived in Thailand for seven or eight years and has a Thai wife, according to Thai police. While police confiscated Bt400 million worth of his assets, including four Lamborghini super cars and three properties, his only known background was that he worked as a computer programmer.

Numerous reports later claimed that Cazes was either the “admin” for, or otherwise heavily involved in running AlphaBay, a “Dark Web” marketplace used to buy and sell illegal items such as drugs and firearms.

The anonymous marketplace had been dubbed “the new Silk Road”, and was typically only accessible via special software or secret domains. AlphaBay mysteriously went offline around the same time Cazes was arrested, according to Thaivisa.

The site’s closing came after coordinated action by the US, Canada and Thailand, reported the Wall Street Journal. That action included the arrest of Cazes, who allegedly was one of the site’s operators, the report said.

Following its creation in December 2014, AlphaBay emerged as an heir to the Silk Road, the online marketplace closed by federal authorities in October, 2013. Both sites were accessible via Tor, a network that takes steps to preserve the anonymity of its users.

While the Silk Road’s primary focus was drug sales, AlphaBay was more diverse, selling stolen credit-card numbers, drugs, online-fraud tutorials and guns, according to Andrei Barysevich, a director at Recorded Future Inc, which sells data about online threats and the Dark Web.

In the first six months of 2017, AlphaBay sold more than US$5 million in stolen credit-card numbers, Barysevich said. “AlphaBay was the biggest marketplace on the Dark Web,” he said.

Total sales on the site averaged between $600,000 and $800,000 a day, earning AlphaBay’s operators millions of dollars each year in commissions, according to Nicolas Christin, an associate research professor at Carnegie Mellon University who studies online marketplaces.

The Montreal Gazette reported that the raids were carried out as “part of a larger, international investigation involving the FBI and other agencies” into the sale of illegal goods online. A thread on Reddit claimed Cazes was actually DeSnake one of the admins of AlphaBay.

Speculation online claimed Cazes killed himself to avoid being extradited to the US. It is not known if the raids resulted in the seizure of computers hosting AlphaBay or if Cazes shared any information about the site with authorities prior to his death.

National police chief Pol General Chaktip Chaijinda, who is now in Krabi, yesterday evening refused to confirm whether any arrest has been made. “I will call a press conference later,” he said.

The gangland-style executions of Worayuth Sunglung, a village headman in Krabi’s Ao Luk district, and seven of his family at their home have shocked the nation.

Only three miraculously survived the attack on Monday night with injuries, while the only family member unscathed was Worayuth’s three-month-old baby.

The current investigation suggests that a stone-mill conflict may have led to the crime.

Worayuth reportedly received a huge sum of money from the developers but failed to win locals’ support for the project.

Based on the testimonies of |survivors, the men broke into the house but did not immediately open fire. The bloody attack came after their negotiations with Worayuth failed.

On condition of anonymity, a crime suppression police said records showed Worayuth called his close friend, who is a stone-mill partner, at 9.30pm on Monday |and talked nearly 10 minutes.

“So, his close friend definitely was involved in the crime,” the officer said, without naming this close friend.

However, news reports have mentioned that Chetdanai Thinphang-nga, an executive of a mill and Worayuth’s childhood friend, has been summoned for questioning.

Police yesterday searched the homes of Chetdanai and his uncle, Wipoj Thinphang-nga, a former president of the Ao Luk Tao Tambon Administration Organisation.

Wipoj has reportedly survived several assassination attempts before.

A team assigned to review surveillance recordings has found that the vehicles used by the gang had headed towards the Southern Seaboard.

Police would reportedly search a location in Nakhon Si Thammarat province soon because the attackers were believed to have gone into hiding there.

An insider said the killers must have been a gang of debt collectors used to aggressive tactics.

“This gang has recruited rogue ex-soldiers. Those guys were armed,” he added.

A source at the Central Police Forensic Science Division said all the bullets that hit victims in the massacre came from the same gun.

“And that gun very likely belongs to Worayuth,” the source said.

Four food boxes and bottles of water left at the crime scene were now being tested for DNA of |the assailants, the police source added.