A figurative earthquake passed through the notoriously corrupt Thai police this week with the arrests of some of the force’s top officials, including Pongpat Chayaphan, the head of the Central Investigation Bureau, Thailand’s FBI.
Seven of Pongpat’s colleagues were arrested with him on charges of soliciting bribes for job appointments, allowing illegal gaming and oil smuggling and were paraded before reporters. An unnamed suspect died in custody after being transferred from his post but before he was charged, according to authorities, who said he had committed suicide by leaping from a building, although he was almost immediately cremated, leading to suspicion that something else might have happened to him.
It would be tempting to believe that the arrests mean the military, which staged a coup on May 22 and vowed to clean out Thailand’s endemic corruption, have finally started in on the police, six months after Prayuth Chan-ocha took charge of the country and drove out forces aligned with fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The police have been regarded as Thaksin’s power base, having risen himself from police ranks.