A police station chief with a 3% share in a pub, held by his wife, allegedly creamed off 100,000 baht a month in free food and drinks, eventually leading to it closing down.
Prominent lawyer Sittra Biebangkerd blew the whistle on Tuesday when he filed a petition to the national police chief, Pol Gen Damrongsak Kittiprapas.
He asked for a disciplinary investigation into the station chief, a man he said has the rank of police colonel and is based in Ratchaburi, and his offsider, a police sergeant, over their alleged involvement with Good Zone, a pub in Krathum Baen in Samut Sakhon. He did not make their names public.
The lawyer quoted the owner of Good Zone as saying the pub had been serving food and drinks for about 3 years. The police colonel had a 3% share that was in his wife’s name. He and his offsider, who worked at the same station, had been taking care of the pub.
The two men had come to the pub regularly for meals and drinks, running up unpaid bills of more than 100,000 baht a month. The police colonel had also taken 30,000 baht a month from the pub to pay to some other, unnamed person. This left the pub operating at a loss.
The senior officer’s wife had then sold her 3% share to another person and then told the administrator of the pub’s Facebook page to post a message saying it was closed for renovations, without the knowledge of the owner and other shareholders.
Employees of the pub did not come to work after seeing the message and the customers stayed away. This caused the pub to suffer more losses and eventually to shut down completely.
Mr Sittra asked for an investigation into the two policemen to determine if they were in breach of police discipline. He also asked it the posting of the message that the pub was closed for renovations after the sale of shares was a breach of the Computer Crimes Act.
Mr Sittra first referred to the police station chief’s conduct on his Facebook page two days previously. He said he would take the pub owner with him to file a police complaint against the wife of a police station chief and accomplices, for putting false information into a computer system about Good Zone pub being closed for renovations.
