Former national police chief Somyot Poompanmoung did not include in his financial report loans of Bt300 million he claimed to have received from the fugitive owner of a massage parlour involved in a human trafficking case, according to the anti-graft agency.

The National AntiCorruption Commission (NACC) is investigating the suspected discrepancy.

Yesterday, the agency made public details of Somyot’s assets and liabiliฌties that he had submitted to the agency after becoming a member of the National Legislative Assembly in July 2014. Somyot left the NLA in March. His financial report did not mention the claimed loans and no evidence was found to prove that Somyot had actually borrowed from and had paid back to Kampol Weerathepsuporn, the fugitive owner of “Victoria’s: The Secret Forever” massage parlour, according to senior NACC officials.

NACC President Watcharapol Prasarnrajkit said yesterday that the agency would determine whether the financial report was accurate. If there was suspicion of inaccuracy, legal action could be taken, he added.

In February, amidst rumours of close ties between Kampol and an unnamed senior police officer, Somyot said that he had borrowed on a few occasions from the massage parlour owner and the loans totalled about Bt300 million. However, Somyot also said that he had paid back his debt owed to Kampol “through the banking system”.

Somyot served as commissioner general of the Royal Thai Police between October 2014 and September 2015. He is currently the president of the Football Association of Thailand. He was also required by law to submit a financial report to the NACC while serving as the national police chief.

NACC SecretaryGeneral Warawit Sukboon yesterday declined to answer a question whether Somyot had borฌrowed the Bt300 million while servฌing as the police chief. “The amount was not mentioned in his financial report, so you the media have to think for yourself,” Warawit said.

He added that the NACC was invesฌtigating this matter. Somyot has handฌed his written explanation to the NACC and the agency is waiting for transacฌtion records it had requested from relฌevant banks, the official said.

According to Somyot’s financial report made public by the NACC yesterday, he has assets worth Bt262.8 million and his wife Pojaman Bt95.8 million after leaving office as an NLA member in March.

In August 2014, after assuming the post, Somyot said in his financial report that he had assets valued at Bt246.4 million and his wife Bt128.2 million.

Meanwhile, the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) is looking into the money trail involving Somyot’s alleged creditor Kampol, according to a senior Justice Ministry official.

The ministry’s deputy permanent secretary Tawatchai Thaikyo, in his capacity as its spokesman, said yesterฌday that in probing the human trafฌficking case linked to him, DSI susฌpected that Kampol might have transฌferred his allegedly illgotten assets to about 40 people. The DSI has invited those recipients, including Somyot, for questioning and sought information from financial institutions and releฌvant agencies such as the Stock Exchange of Thailand, Tawatchai said.

In January, DSI agents raided the massage parlour in Bangkok’s Huai Khwang district and most of the masseuses there were found to be Myanmar nationals. Kampol and his wife are on the run after being named as suspects in the human trafficking case. More than Bt400 million of their assets have been confiscated in conฌnection with the case.

The activists from various customer protection groups yesterday submitted the petition to Commerce Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong, who chairs the Central Committee on Prices of goods and services, seeking price controls on medical treatments to deal with overcharging in some private hospitals.

According to the petition, the customer protection groups asked the Central Committee on the Price of Goods and Services to include medical treatment as a controlled service to cap the price of medicine, medical equipment and medical services in every hospital and improve the system to submit complaints about overpriced medical services.

Even though the representative of the Commerce Ministry agreed to forward the petition to related agencies, Supatra Nacapew, the head of Independent Consumer Protection Subcommittee on Food, Drugs, and Other Health Products, said the activists were disappointed by the ministry’s reaction, as it tried to pass on the responsibility to the Public Health Ministry.

“This is the third time that we submitted the petition with the same request – control the price of medical treatment – to the Commerce Ministry, but there is still no progress, even though they are the direct agency with the duty to control the price of goods and services,” Supatra said.

“We insist that medical expense needs to be controlled, because we have received many cases of overpriced medical expenses in private hospitals, which cause severe financial trouble to the patients and their families.”

She warned that if the Commerce Ministry continued to ignore the activists’ demand for 15 days, they would file a complaint against the ministry at the Administrative Court and Ombudsman’s Office for failure to perform its duty.

She revealed that the lack of medical price controls allowed some private hospitals to change the price for medical treatment at their whim and in some cases the price of medicine was more than 400 times the original price, leaving many patients with huge debts.

The deputy permanent secretary at the Commerce Ministry, Wichai Phochanakit, said the ministry had not ignored the problem of overpricing for medical treatment. He said the ministry was currently working with the Public Health Ministry to find measures to control the cost of medical services.

Wichai insisted that the duty to oversee the price of medical treatment lies with the Public Health Ministry, but he promised that the Commerce Ministry would help the Public Health Ministry on related tasks.

Deputy Tourist Police Commander Pol Maj-General Surachet Hakpal yesterday said that five suspects from three online child pornography networks had been arrested under warrants.

“Their accounts led to the arrest of another suspect,” he said.

The arrests were made in Samut Prakan, Surat Thani and Ubon Ratchathani provinces, he said.

Surachet said police learned from one suspect, identified only as Oh, 29, that the networks had sponsors and controlled several websites.

Police were tipped off by non-governmental organisations to carry out the crackdowns, he said, adding that over 500 child porn websites have since been blocked.

Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division (ATPD) chief Pol Maj-General Kornchai Klayklueng said porn websites were considered human trafficking crimes, and most of the offenders are programmers or experts in doctoring photos.

Kornchai said young boys were sometimes duped to masturbate on webcams by offenders who pretended to be women and the recorded clips were shown on the child-porn sites.

National Police Office’s top adviser Pol General Tamasak Wicharaya said that an emerging human trafficking method was to lure female and male youths to take indecent photos and video clips to sell via social media.

“We established the Thailand Internet Crimes against Children [TICAC] task force two years ago to tackle this trend and similar crimes,” he said.

The task force had already arrested many wrongdoers, he said, and most of them were Thais.

Tamasak, who heads the police force’s Children, Women, and Family Protection Centre, said he proposed upgrading TICAC into a division and setting up a digital forensic science division to fight online crimes, including child pornography.

“The centre now works closely with the 150-strong TICAC on digital investigation,” he said. The digital forensic science division will recruit 100 bachelor’s degree holders from within the police force and outside for computer, social media and telephone evidence gathering, he said.

Tamasak hoped recent successes – especially Thai authorities’ continuing measures to prevent and suppress human-trafficking crimes – would improve the country’s position from Tier 2.5 on the watch list to Tier 2 in the US Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report 2018, to be released in June.

In a related development, Nakhon Phanom social development and human security official Apinya Chompoomas led police and administrative officials to inspect night entertainment venues in Muang district on Thursday night as part of efforts to prevent human trafficking crimes.

They gave a formal warning to a karaoke bar in Tambon Tha Khor that employed some girls under 18. The bar’s owner insisted the youths worked as dish-washing staff and not waitresses, while another beer and karaoke bar employed six Thai and seven Lao women with proper work permits. Apinya said the authorities have to be more vigilant now that human traffickers are using various techniques including abduction, and are luring foreign women into prostitution via marriage.

Sukit tendered his resignation on Thursday in the face of pressure from many doctors, whom the society describes as “commercial doctors”. The resignation will take effect from June 1.

The society yesterday urged Medical Council’s president Professor Dr Prasit Watanapa to again appoint Sukit as its secretary-general.

Sukit had been facing intense pressure after he exercised his authority to withdraw the Medical Council’s defamation lawsuit against Thai Medical Error Network’s president Preeyanan Lorsermvattana even though she had not yet fully complied with the council’s conditions.

The Medical Council started the lawsuit in 2016 over several of Preeyanan’s comments.

“They contain false information, such as claims that the Medical Council has organised training on how to write medical records to avoid medical-malpractice lawsuits or training on how medical specialists can help defend doctors,” Dr Chanesd Srisukho said late last month as he tried to nudge Prasit into firing Sukit. Chanesd and his group are unhappy that Sukit dropped the lawsuit against Preeyanan before she publicly apologised to the Medical Council – one of the key conditions.

Sukit said he withdrew the complaint against Preeyanan because she had already agreed to write an apology to the Medical Council but Chanesd’s group has said the apology Preeyanan offered was not in line with the conditions set by the Medical Council’s resolution.

“What Sukit has done is nothing short of betraying doctors in general,” Chanesd said.

He said the Medical Council had not sued Preeyanan because it wanted to send her to jail.

“But we want to prove which side is right,” he said.

Preeyanan has refused to comment. In the eyes of the Rural Doctors Society, Sukit has made the right move and showed courage in resolving the prolonged conflict between the Medical Council and patients’ networks.

“It’s a way to start a new, better chapter,” the society said yesterday.

Signed by the society’s president, Dr Kriangsak Watcharanukulkiat, the statement said Prasit should restore Sukit as the Medical Council’s secretary-general to ensure there is room for good people in Thailand.

The extrajudicial killing could be applied, said Surachai, because the “merciless” fugitive had proved to be armed and dangerous, had fatally shot Pol Corporal Saran Muthaporn despite his plea for mercy and wounded another officer, Pol Sgt-Major Pramote Thipmongkol.

At midday yesterday, a 20-hour search by scuba divers of Pao River confirmed Saran’s death when they retrieved the 26-year-old’s body, which had sustained a gunshot wound to the back of the head.

Surachai and other senior officers inspected the shooting scene, a fishing pier in Ban Dong Somboon where Saran and Pramote fell into river and were shot on Thursday evening while attempting to arrest Suriyan.

Witnesses told police that they saw Saran and Pramote rowing a boat to the fishing pier to arrest the 48-year-old suspect assuming the man would not be armed.

Suriyan, a former health station doctor in Tambon Dong Somboon, also fled with the two officers’ pistols, Surachai said.

Saran’s father Kasem Muthaporn, a police colonel and commander of Muang Nong Khai police, was at the pier with his wife yesterday morning offering prayers for the search for Saran to succeed.

Upon seeing the body of his son, Kasem had tears in his eyes and said Saran, a strong swimmer and former school athlete, must have been shot while trying to swim away from the shooter.

He urged police to bring his son’s killer to justice but as of press time, a manhunt for Suriyan was still continuing in the area. Border checkpoints were also alerted to be on the look-out for Suriyan in case he tried to flee the country.

Saran is said to have been a good-natured young man, who was close to his father and therefore decided to follow him into the police force.

He was serving as a drugs-suppression officer with Investigation Division 2 of Provincial Police Region 4 when he was killed.

He had also been about to take an exam for a ranking promotion.