In August 1994, jeweller Santhi, widely believed to have been responsible for switching the real gems with fakes, was kidnapped and tortured on the orders of Lieutenant-General Chalor. Not long afterwards, the bodies of his wife and 14-year-old son were found in their wrecked Mercedes on a highway just outside Bangkok. Thai police forensic officers declared they had been killed in a road accident. It quickly became clear that the police were lying – the two victims had been murdered with blows to the head, and there had been a subsequent crude attempt to make their deaths appear to have been an accident.
Chalor was charged with the murder of Santhi’s wife and son. During the trial it emerged that four men had confessed to carrying out the murders on the orders of police, and that police had tried to extort a $2.5 million ransom from the jeweller. Chalor was found guilty and sentenced to death, but the sentence has never been carried out. In 2006 Chalor was also convicted of receiving the stolen Saudi gems. This Reuters photograph shows him being led from jail to hear his sentence: