Investigation Ordered into Unusual Wealth of Senior Police Officer

The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) is probing the unusual extreme unusual wealth of Pol Col Thitisan Utthanaphon, the key suspect in the custodial killing of a drug suspect in Nakhon Sawan.

The NACC has the authority to conduct this investigation along with the police investigation into the murder case, Niwatchai Kasemmongkol, NACC spokesman, said yesterday.

Evidence about the suspect’s unusual wealth has been compiled and will today be forwarded to the NACC’s subcommittee on assets inspection for consideration, he said.

The 39-year-old superintendent of the city police station in Nakhon Sawan, one of at least seven suspects in the murder case, is also accused of taking bribes, said Mr Niwatchai.

A police source said Pol Col Thitisan wasn’t this rich from the beginning but he has built his own wealth out of some grey area businesses. These include trading edible bird’s nests while he was a deputy sub-division chief at Narcotics Suppression Division 4, overseeing drug suppression operations in the South.

At that time he emerged as a rising star in drug suppression who handled many important cases. Cases that led him to know people in illicit businesses and the bird’s nest trade, a source told the Bangkok Post.

Police officer known as “Jo Ferrari”

He later moved on to making money out of suppressing the smuggling of luxury cars and super cars in the South. He earned a lot of money from rewards offered for seizing such cars. Handing them over the Customs Department for resale through an auction, said the source.

He earned 900,000 baht for a car worth 2 million baht, for instance. The source did not say to what extent this activity could be considered legitimate.

National police chief Suwat Jangyodsuk has already sacked the most senior officer, Pol Col Thitisan, 39, from the police force for his alleged role in the torture.

The officer is known as “Jo Ferrari” because he owns so many sports cars, including a Lamborghini limited-edition Aventador LP 720-4 50 Anniversary special. He was reportedly the first Thai to own this model car.

Police also found other 13 luxury cars parked at his 60 million baht home at Panya Intra housing estate in Bang Chan area.

Thitisan, 39, was removed as city police chief and sacked from the force on Tuesday after a video showing a man being suffocated to death with a plastic bag over his head was posted on Facebook, and rapidly went viral.