A policeman was sentenced to 50 years in prison by the Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases for receiving bribes from a massage parlour in exchange for turning a blind eye to illegal activities on their premises.
The ruling was published in a news bulletin of the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) last month which said in March 2020 the policeman, attached to the Metropolitan Police Bureau's Investigation Division, was found guilty of bribe-taking.
The PACC issued a statement yesterday that gave further details about the case.
According to the PACC, the senior police sergeant-major was indicted on 65 counts of bribe-taking where he took in a total of 641,000 baht from Nataree Entertainment, a massage parlour on Ratchadaphisek Road that was raided in 2016.
In its ruling, the court found the defendant guilty of violating the anti-graft law and initially sentenced him to 325 years in prison, five years for each of the 65 counts of bribe-taking. However, under the law, he can only spend a maximum of 50 years behind bars.
Nataree Entertainment was raided in 2016 on a tip-off from a non-governmental organisation that it brought in minors to work as sex workers.
Authorities found more than 120 female sex workers, including foreigners and victims of human trafficking on the premises. Eight of them were under the age of 18.
They also seized books used to record bribes that included a list of abbreviated names of law enforcement agencies which allegedly pocketed monthly kickbacks from the parlour.
One of the books shown to the media showed that over 300,000 baht in bribes were paid monthly to a number of state officials, each one picking up between 5,000 baht and some close to 80,000 baht.
In 2017, the Criminal Court sentenced five people to up to 13 years in jail for procuring minors and migrants as prostitutes for Nataree Entertainment. Its owner, Prasert "Kolak" Sukkhee, 63, was arrested in October last year in Bangkok for alleged involvement in the trafficking of minors.