CHIANG RAI: Four police face charges after taking a one-million-baht bribe from a Chinese gang live-streaming pornography via a Chinese app.
Pol Lt Gen Surachate Hakparn, head of the national child abuse suppression unit; Pol Maj Gen Pichet Jiranantasin, deputy chief of Provincial Police Region 5; and Pol Maj Gen Shinwit Wichaithanapat, chief of Chiang Rai Police, yesterday disclosed the involvement of police with a Chinese gang.
It comes after a crackdown at a resort in tambon Doi Hang of Muang district on May 26 by the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB), provincial and immigration police.
Six Chinese were arrested. Police learned the gang lured Thai and Lao women into working for them as porn actresses in pay-per-view live streaming via the Zhu Shou mobile app. Minors were also hired for the production.
The four police complicit in the case comprise a 42-year-old acting deputy superintendent with the rank of police lieutenant colonel, 48- and 50-year-old police captains, and a 30-year-old police sergeant.
They face charges including abuse of power and malfeasance in office.
The probe ran from January-March after the CCIB's Division 4 was tipped off about a group of Chinese trying to live-stream pornography in Muang district.
Many items including mobile phones, equipment for live streaming, condoms and sex toys, were spotted at the four houses. But the acting deputy superintendent did not take any action against wrongdoers.
The matter later became known by the CCIB, which sent investigators to monitor a location scout who found and set up places for video shooting.