The deadly terrorist attacks in Paris on Nov 13 have persuaded the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) to step up its work in suppressing transnational crimes.
The police are trying to better understand how such gangs operate in Thailand, to make crime-busting efforts more effective.
Information on the 18 most common types of criminal activities perpetrated by gangs in Thailand is in the CIB's new database and it will be used to launch a massive crackdown by the end of the year, said a police source.
CIB chief Thitirach Nonghanpithak has assigned his deputy, Pol Maj Gen Chan Wimolsri, to oversee the formation of the CIB's centre for suppression of transnational criminals.
At a meeting of 11 divisions under the CIB on Nov 16, Pol Lt Gen Thitirach pointed to the necessity of improving management of the police's database, which provides the fundamental basis for combating transnational crimes. It is not uncommon for foreign groups to commit crimes in Thailand, but there was no central criminal database to record the activities and behaviour of suspects. Other agencies also had no information to offer the police, according to Pol Lt Gen Thitirach.
However, now the database is in place, it looks certain to benefit the police in terms of both preventing and suppressing transnational crimes, he said.
Pol Col Phanthana Nuchanart, deputy commander of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD), who is expected to head up the new centre, said information about cases involving foreign criminals and suspects in the past five years is currently being collected. Crimes frequently reported by the media are ATM card skimming, black money schemes, romance scams and human trafficking. They are among 18 types of transnational crimes identified by the police.
The other crimes include fake credit card and bank note scams, internet fraud related to illicit spam mails, Chinese yuan transaction scams and bank note exchange theft. Still others are illegal online football and lottery betting, luxury jewellery theft, car break-ins, thefts at department stores and airports, and car and motorcycle theft, according to Pol Col Phanthana.
Catching and prosecuting suspects in the past was made possible by information supplied by the Technology Crime Suppression Division, the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division, the Tourist Police Division, the Economic Crime Suppression Division, the Anti-Human Trafficking Division and the Consumer Protection Police Division.
"We began with [sorting out] criminal activities which makes it easier for us to analyse and establish a pattern, such as suspects from what country commit what nature of crime here," said Pol Col Phanthana.
In the black money fraud schemes, for instance, suspects arrested were mostly people from African countries, he said. Suspects in most credit card scams turned out to be from eastern European countries, while a number of suspects arrested for stealing jewellery came from within Asia, according to the police colonel.
As for the potential threat from terrorism, he said, his investigators work with Special Branch Police and Interpol and a meeting is held every two months between the agencies. "We've been building up the database for a while and we are now ready to put it to use. And when the data compilation is complete, we will be able to also plan our long-term operations.
"This is unlike in the past when Thai police only dealt with transnational crimes on a case by case basis and relied mainly on information supplied to them by the international police network," he said.
A litmus test for the efficiency of the database came in September when the CIB tracked down and arrested two people at Suvarnabhumi airport who were caught on security camera footage stealing a diamond.
One of the suspects had swallowed a 10-million-baht diamond stolen from a Bangkok jewellery fair. Officers retrieved the diamond after doctors performed a colonoscopy on the woman. As a major diamond trade show is being held in February next year, police believe they will be better prepared to prevent theft with the help of information supplied to the CIB's database, said Pol Col Phanthana.
Also, the CSD's six sub-divisions are speeding up old investigations of transnational crimes under their jurisdictions, and some arrest warrants have been issued for suspects who remain at large, he said.
And to support the sub-divisions' operations, he said, the CSD has set up the Command Control Operations Centre (CCOC) which will work with a team analysing criminal patterns and characteristics of transnational gangs. Such analyses, together with the use of the Royal Thai Police's Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), should help find foreign suspects in some unfinished investigations, he said.
Contact Crime Track: crimetrack@bangkokpost.co.th
