Thread: 2 nabbed for B200m Supoj home heist

^That sense of impunity can seriously rot your common sense.

All main actors in this scenario have changed their stories, several times.

Supoj,......................regarding the sum involved,

Police.......................regarding the sum involved.

Arrested suspects.......regarding the sum involved.

To date, the primary witnesses to the event, the maids, have not made a public statement regarding the event.
They were allegedly subject to assault and illegal confinement by the suspects.

Strange.

The likely result is that a cover up will occur.

The metamorphosing sum of money involved will likely be further metamorphosed until it will bear no relevance to the probe.

A win-win-win solution.

Five more held by police over robbery at Supoth's mansion - The Nation

Five more held by police over robbery at Supoth's mansion

The Nation November 21, 2011 1:06 am


Bt16m seized amid claims of plot to expose official's 'crimes'

Three more men have been arrested and two surrendered yesterday - including the alleged mastermind - after a gang broke into the home of the top Transport Ministry official last week and made off with millions of baht.

The money was part of more than Bt1 billion that the suspects claim to have found at the home of Transport permanent secretary Supoth Sablom.

Somboon Riyaten, 40, reported to police in Chiang Rai, while Wanankrit Butkanha, 40, Bunseub Jomkan, 44, and Wuthichai Panthawari, 33, were arrested and some Bt16.5 million seized, police said yesterday.

The alleged ringleader, Chayathat Jannachai, 34, also turned himself in to police along with his mother, Chutima Janphong, who previously served as Supoth's secretary.

Both were questioned by police, but Chayathat reportedly denied any wrongdoing. Police sources said Chayathat was angry with Supoth, who allegedly fired Chutima six months ago. They believe he plotted the burglary to expose Supoth.

Earlier, two other men were arrested with gold and cash worth almost Bt3 million. They told police they believed more than Bt1 billion - assumed to be ill-gotten - was stashed at Supoth's mansion.

Police believe more than 10 people were involved in the crime.

They said they had been contacted by Lersak Wiriyakrasap, 51, from Kanchanaburi, about turning in Bt1.5 million in cash that he was holding on request for one of the burglars.

Pol General Panupong Singhara, a deputy police chief, said that four men had confessed to conspiring to do the robbery and that four others were still at large - Weerasak Chualee, 36, one of the suspected gang leaders, Pongsak Namwong, 35, Kamnuan Meknoi, 38, and Prapan Ruangkrua, 32.

Panupong said the gang leader had divided the stolen money up among many people in various places. Police have publicly announced that anyone keeping money for the gang to return it to police or face legal action.

Panupong said Chayatat, 33, had been the key police informant. He surrendered late yesterday.

Police found that Chayatat, who was close to Bunseub, had asked Bunseub to recruit members to take part in the crime. Bunseub contacted the gang leader to search for more men.

Panupong said police had not found any evidence implicating state officials, but did find that one of the suspects, Singthong, alias Seh Kai, was often called by gang members as Seh, denoting a military rank, even though he was not a military official.

Somboon said he was a farmer in Chiang Rai and approached by Singthong to do some work in Bangkok. He said he accepted the job, without knowing it was to rob Supoth's house.

He only knew about the burglary when he and five others broke into Supot's house. He said he went into the living room and saw three paper boxes in the closet with a lot of money. He took one box, which contained Bt3 million in cash, and saw two bags in a trolley, which he believed were filled with cash.

He said Weerasak, the gang leader, asked for Bt50,000 out of the Bt3 million he got from the box before they fled.

Following last week's break-in at his Bangkok home, Supoth was transferred to an inactive post on Friday. He is now the subject of probes into his wealth by the National Anti-Corruption Commission and the Anti-Money Laundering Office.

A Transport Ministry source said the break-in at Supoth's house was plotted by a former official upset at Supoth for transferring her to an inactive post at the Highways Department. The angry ex-official who later left the post was allegedly a close aide who knew Supoth "inside out". The pair had conflicts later.

"Many people believe the conflict between the two made the ex-official plot the burglary to expose Supoth's [alleged] wrongdoings. The burglars accepted to commit the crime, as they believed they would only be jailed a few years [if caught]. The burglary would link those involved with the money,'' the source alleged.

Bangkok Post : Man didn't realise B1.5m was stolen

Man didn't realise B1.5m was stolen

• Published: 21/11/2011 at 12:00 AM
• Newspaper section: News

A man yesterday returned 1.5 million baht in cash to police after learning from media reports the money left with him by an acquaintance was cash stolen from permanent secretary for transport Supoj Saplom's house.


Phanupong Singhara na Ayudhya, second right, holds a press conference about the arrests of four suspects allegedly involved in a robbery at the house of Supoj Saplom. KOSOL NAKACHOL

Lersak Wiriyakasap, 51, a Kanchanaburi native, told police he was given the money from a man later identified as the leader of the gang that broke into Mr Supoj's house on Nov 12, deputy national police chief Phanupong Singhara na Ayudhya said.

Mr Lersak insisted he was not aware that the money left with him by Weerasak Chualee, 36, had been stolen, Pol Gen Phanupong said.

Pol Maj Gen Winai Thongsong, acting commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, who is also investigating the robbery case, said police did not charge Mr Lersak as a suspect.

Pol Maj Gen Winai said no arrest warrant had been issued for Mr Lersak.

Pol Maj Gen Winai said Mr Lersak returned home after he surrendered the money to the police.

Last week Mr Supoj told police his house had been broken into and 12 million baht was missing.

But one of the two suspects arrested on Thursday told police that when he and five other men broke into the house, they found an estimated 700 million to 1 billion baht stashed away in bags.

Mr Supoj has rejected claims that such a large amount of money had been kept in his house.

He insisted the accusation was intended to discredit him.

It remains unclear how much money had been stolen.

Meanwhile, Chayatat Channachai, 33, surrendered to police yesterday.

National police chief Pol Gen Priewpan Damapong said Mr Chayatat was a son of a retired civil servant and that police had evidence that he had supplied information about Mr Supoj's house to the robbery gang.

Pol Gen Priewpan said he could not reveal any more details about the suspect's involvement.

As Mr Supoj now faces an investigation as a result of the robbers' claims into whether he is "unusually wealthy", he has been transferred to an inactive post.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission will meet tomorrow to decide whether to investigate Mr Supoj's alleged unusual wealth.

In the EU this would not be reported, there is no one who would be in position to do so

Originally Posted by nostromo

In the EU this would not be reported, there is no one who would be in position to do so

How do you arrive at that supposition?

The magically metamorphosing mounds of money!

There ought to be a book written on the phenomenon, it would be a best seller!

Literally fly off the shelves, on golden wings.

You have to wonder, do they look miserable because they have been caught by the police and are looking at serious jail time. Or is it the thought that they pissed off a nasty piece of work, who still has more than enough money to not even notice the amount needed to make whats left of their lives short, miserable and brutal?

^ I think they're more pissed off because they only stashed a few hundy K baht each, one sucker reckoned he only got 50,000 baht!.

The sums retrieved tell a little story, lumps of a few grand missing off separste piles, etc.

They must have really panicked at the size of the haul.

Wonder what the cops are going to admit it to be, after the dust and scrabbling has settled down, when boss walks in and sarge yells,
"Squad 'shun!" and they all fall all over the place trying to look right?!!!

All pointing the finger at each other,"It woz im a im not me, no sarge!" etc.

What a circus!

The maids coughing yet?
Pro'lly no need, knew what was going down all along!

Little thieves stealing from big thieves

^sorry, its the other way round. the civil servants have very little authority to decide much, that is the domain of politicians. I believe that even PR permits are ultimately granted or not by the interior minister personally. The civil servants sign stuff off, thus their ability to sell that rubber stamp and signature. Essential cogs in the process of fleecing the tax payer, but the real money is with the politicians and their business colleges.

Quite right nothing will happen to him, but then he knows his place and whats expected of him. Thats valuable to all political parties
.

Don't Thai criminals have any imagination or sense of urgency? This story has been in the press for days meaning those who were just arrested must have known their caper had gone bad and they were wanted by the police. I would have gotten at least as far as laos or Cambodia with my share of the money.
What did they do, just sit and wait for the police?

Originally Posted by hazz

^sorry, its the other way round. the civil servants have very little authority to decide much, that is the domain of politicians. I believe that even PR permits are ultimately granted or not by the interior minister personally. The civil servants sign stuff off, thus their ability to sell that rubber stamp and signature. Essential cogs in the process of fleecing the tax payer, but the real money is with the politicians and their business colleges.

Quite right nothing will happen to him, but then he knows his place and whats expected of him. Thats valuable to all political parties
.

When Supoj was shifted to new his inactive post his boss said that it was his duty to sympathise with him over the matter, that the creep was hurting etc.

That fact bears out your hypothesis that the amataia closed ranks will support him.
Agree about the bureaucracy, you can change the party in power, but the bureaucracy remains.

same in UK, NZ, US. China, India, everywhere. All conservative, all pro status quo.
That;s how they maintain their graft.

Same with the judiciary, who will now have to deal with it.

I'll bet it's hurting.

He'll never get over this loss of face.

Supoj's underling, the lady who's son organized the heist really had it in for him for sacking her. She was a bureaucrat also, a lifelong devotion to her position that she probably paid heaps to get, phony business degree and all.

She lost face mak mak.

Stupid man, didn't he know never to cross an ambitious woman ?

Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned, for sure.

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

^ positions are not that relevant, it's status within the patronage system. Many factors affect the status level: historic factors, family name, titles and connections to ####, wealth, ability to make others wealthy, power within institutions (there are many different institutions involved), the list goes on...

To seriously cream the tax payer and more importantly to get away with it even if you are found out; you don't need a huge number of people involved, but you do need people in a disparate number of positions throughout parliament, the civil service and business. A patronage network is an ideal way to get people who would otherwise have nothing to do with each other to work together.

getting rid of patronage networks is a wonderful idea and the only way I can see for that is by making the risks of doing whats necessary to be part of patronage network too high. For the forceable future I cannot see how this could be practically achieved, given all sides believe that double standards are a privilege they are entitled too.

Originally Posted by ENT

He'll never get over this loss of face.

he has been punished by being given a 60 billion baht flood reconstruction budget to oversee, not much loss of face in that.

^ Hazz I think we will see further developments as the Anti Corruption Commission crawls through the paper trail.

BettyBoo post#51
I think you're onto it.
The maids called the cops, they were in on it with the other lady, the one who got fired.

I won't be holding my breath. People like him only go down when they are guilty and someone with serious clout wants them done. I don't see that here, yet anyway.

What a paper trail. you mean receipt books?, saying things like:

received with thanks, 4 million baht.
authorising illegal compensation payment to construction contract.
paid by Khun verycurruptbastard

^ he don't think he'll be done. He's a vehicle for others to regroup, rearrange and redistribute money and power.

^Nothing as obvious.

Serial numbers of bank note, DNA, pollen and chemical signatures on notes, are some of the trails.
Scribbles on notes as well as finger/palm prints.
These are some of the kinds of trails currently being examined by forensic scientists/pathologists/investigators in NZ.

All it takes is a lab and a small team.

Forensic auditors are getting smarter by the day, and grapho-analysis is common.

The tools and skills exist, all that is required is the go ahead from a senior investigator, and the political will which I think is as yet not there in Thailand.

Supoj can be proven to be corrupt quite easily.

But who is going to gain by authorising a full forensic investigation?

^ yes he CAN be, nobody denies that.

Culturally, he CANNOT be. The system is thoroughly rotten, it is designed to be that way. The more rotten it is, the more folk involved in the rot, the more impossible it becomes to prosecute any of the rot. It's a house of cards with some very 'important' folk at the top; they cannot be allowed to fall or be seen to fall.

It has been this way for a long long time and will continue to be this way for a fair while yet.

To our mind, it's totally rotten and unfair, but as Hazz pointed out well, to the mind of the people in the system (and that's almost everyone who has any power or status in Thailand) then the patronage system is very functional, works effectively and cannot be allowed to fail.

If it's true, I bet there will be some guys looking over their shoulders right now, some sleepless nights