Kampol Wirathepsuporn and his wife Nipa, key suspects in the Victoria's Secret Massage case may have fled the country, deputy national police chief Srivara Ransibrahmanakul said yesterday.
Investigators have yet to find a trace of the couple and there was no record of them sneaking out of the country via a border checkpoint, according to the Immigration Bureau.
There is the possibility that Mr Kampol and Ms Nipa avoided checkpoints and sneaked over a land border into a country yet to be determined, Pol Gen Srivara said.
Despite the suspects not being in custody, it will not affect the investigation as arrest warrants were granted after substantial evidence incriminating them was presented, he said.
Pol Gen Srivara was speaking during a meeting to discuss the case with the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) at the Royal Thai Police headquarters yesterday.
The hunt for the suspects was launched after the DSI raided Victoria's Secret Massage, a brothel allegedly linked to a human trafficking syndicate, on Rama IX Road in Bangkok's Huai Khwang district on Jan 12.
Investigators later found Mr Kampol was the massage parlour's proprietor. The probe also implicated his wife.
Speaking about the use of groundwater at Victoria's Secret Massage and four affiliated massage parlours, Pol Gen Srivara said two establishments were found to have used the water without permission.
They were Victoria's Secret Massage and Copa Cabana in Din Daeng district.
As for the remaining three, probes has yet to be completed regarding two -- Long Beach in Bang Kapi district and The Lord in Din Daeng district -- as special equipment to measure groundwater was required, while another one, Embassy in Ratchathewi district, was cleared.
Pol Gen Srivara said similar probes would also be conducted at other four massage parlours -- Hoo Yin Massage, Venus, Utopia and Tarawadee -- all operated by the same company running Victoria's Secret Massage. All their tax records are also being examined, he said.
