Crime

Legal Loophole for Israeli-Australian Convicted Murderer Eli Cohen

BANGKOK – It appears that nothing can legally be done to prevent the reentry to Israel in a few months of convicted murderer Eli Cohen. He cannot be incarcerated, retried or even denied parental rights. He gallingly beat the system, barring some legislative amendments that would anyhow not be instant and not redress the basic injustice.

He lured Carol Amsalem to Bangkok, tortured her with acid and a hot iron, gruesomely butchered her, dismembered her, stuffed some of her hideously mutilated remains in a suitcase and dumped them. Not all the remains were recovered.

What Cohen, a dual Israeli-Australian citizen, did to his ex-wife, the mother of his children, in Thailand in 2004 is the stuff of horror movies.

This was not a crime of passion but a premeditated atrocity. The couple split up after Cohen demanded they move to Australia. Carol Amsalem refused but, by all appearances, their divorce was amicable.

Cohen was sentenced to 150 years. Prison conditions in Thailand are notoriously harsh yet occasionally, especially on royal birthdays, the king grants pardons.

As a result of the latest round of reprieves, Cohen is to be set loose in mid-May. This is not the first time he benefited from unaccountable leniency. Cohen’s sentence had recently been reduced, leaving him with only three more years to serve. Hence the pardon merely hastened his early release.

This is where the typical Israeli phenomenon of seeking someone specific to blame and vent anger upon comes to the fore. Carol Amsalem’s justifiably shaken and outraged relatives are more than understandably up in arms. They point fingers at Interior Minister Eli Yishai as someone who effectively sprang Cohen.

Eli Cohen Maimon and Carol Cohen at their wedding.

Yishai hotly denies this and says he knowingly never dealt with this particular case. What he did do is intercede on behalf of assorted Israelis in general who find themselves behind Thai bars. Yishai has on occasion been active in efforts to transfer Israeli prisoners from what is indeed durance vile in Thailand and have them do their time here.

There is nothing wrong with this; many countries try to move their nationals to their own penitentiaries.

Conditions here and elsewhere in the West may be more humane than in Thailand, but at the same time inmates are not likely to walk out for no compelling reason other than the arbitrary mood of the monarch.

It is imperative that the good deed of looking after Israelis trapped in appalling circumstances not be abandoned because of the utter travesty of the Cohen case. Most of the Israelis sentenced to hard time in Thailand were prosecuted for drug trafficking. The problem is that not all are guilty. Some were set up or were unwitting accomplices.

Thai justice is not pedantic in protecting defendants’ rights, and the prisons are survival of the fittest nightmares in which abuse, malnutrition and disease proliferate.

One wrong should not be allowed to spawn more but unrelated wrongs. It is wrong to let a monster like Cohen out. It will be wrong to punish gullible young couriers or accused couriers because of the unthinking compassion bestowed on the incontrovertibly undeserving Cohen. We need a sense of proportion. Yishai is not the villain of this piece.

Unfortunately, Yishai cannot even keep Cohen out of Israel. Legally speaking Cohen is free to head to either Australia or Israel, but here is where he has family.

In strictly legal terms he has paid his dues and concerns of double jeopardy prevent his retrial here.

Infuriatingly, there are no grounds for imprisoning him.

The only move that could be taken against Cohen would be to revoke his parental rights, but that would hinge on new legislation. At present a released felon, no matter how heinous his crime, cannot be prevented from raising his children, much less from seeing them. This is a dreadful legal loophole that ought to be plugged, although even the swiftest efforts in that direction are unlikely to be of much use in this shameful case.

This is a tragedy not of our making – a glaring instance where our intuitive sense of right and wrong and the dry letter of the law do not mesh.

By JPOST EDITORIAL

Crime

Police Officer Being Ordained at Temple Arrested for Running Scam Call Center

Police in Northern Thailand have arrested a fellow officer as he was being ordained at a temple in Ngao district of neighbouring Lampang province.

Pol Lt Col Bandit Khonkan chief inspector from the Hang Dong police station was disrobed and taken to the Chang Puak station in Chiang Mai. He was arrested on charges of running a call centre scam gang in Chiang Mai Province.

According to Thai Media Chiang Mai Provincial Police Region 5 obtained an arrest warrant for Pol Lt Col Bandit on Friday from the Chiang Mai Provincial Court for procuring illegal telecom equipment, setting up a station and using public airwaves to run a telecommunications business without permission.

Pol Lt Col Bandit reportedly told investigators that he was not the ringleader and was only a member of the gang with Chinese partners.

His arrest followed the apprehension of his 26-year-old daughter, Miss Wanuchapond, 26, and three others during raids at three housing projects in Chiang Mai on Friday, Pol Maj Gen Weerachon Boontawee, deputy chief of Provincial Police Region 5 told Thai media.

During the raids police police discovered around 12 GSM gateways, or SIM boxes, which are devices used for converting cellular networks into mobile phone numbers used domestically.

The chief inspectors daughter Miss Wanuchapond told the arresting officers that she was paid 8,000 baht a month at each of the three locations for renting thr rooms and monitoring devices.

She claimed she had no idea what the devices were and accepted the job because the pay was attractive.

Police investigators working with telecom regulators used a special tracking device to monitor the gang’s communications and learned that its base was in Myanmar opposite Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai.

The call center gang used the GSM gateways to make calls over the internet to scam people in Thailand out of million of baht.

The GSM gateways transmitting signals via SIM boxes to convert them into domestic phone numbers, duping victims into thinking they were being called from Thai government agencies.

Pol Maj Gen Weerachon said that each SIM box held 32 SIM cards, with a capacity of up to 300,000 calls a month. The seized devices had made fraudulent calls over 3.6 million times.

He said the their investigation is ongoing and they are working to track down the remaining conspirators, including Chinese and other Thai suspects.

Authorities are still deciding whether Pol Lt Col Bandit will be dismissed from the force, he said, adding that so far, no other officers are known to have been involved.

Police in Chiang Rai Launch Crackdown on Cyber Criminals in Golden Triangle

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Settha Thavisin has authorized the establishment of an emergency cyber center operated by the Royal Thai Police to combat transnational crimes committed by call center gangs along the Thai border in Chiang Rai province.

On July 19, Prime Minister Settha Thavisin directed the Center to combat information technology crimes. The Royal Thai Police (Royal Thai Police) will crack down on call center gangs in Myanmar, Laos, and along the border.

His directive comes as call center gangs ratchet up their scams to defraud people of their money, causing concern among Thais and jeopardizing the country’s economic and social stability.

Related Police News:

Machete Wielding Man Shot an Killed by Police in Chiang Rai

https://www.chiangraitimes.com/chiangrai-news/machete-wielding-man-shot-an-killed-by-police-in-chiang-rai/

Crime

Thai Immigration Police Arrest Colombian Tourists Over Home Invasions

Immigration police officers have arrested four Colombian nationals in connection with a series of home burglaries at luxury housing complexes in the Bangkok metropolitan area and Chiang Buri Province.

Pol Maj Gen Panthana Nuchanart, deputy commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, told a press briefing that three of the suspects were apprehended in Nonthaburi Province and the fourth in South Pattaya, Chon Buri Province.

According to the Bangkok Post, the Colombians were charged with stealing conspiracy and seized around 3 million baht (US$82,500.00).

According to Pol Maj Gen Panthana, the criminals rode motorcycles through housing estates, scoping out the properties and waiting for the owners to depart before committing their crimes.

He stated that all four of the accused denied any involvement in the home break-ins, but the arresting squad discovered evidence that implicated them.

Police called to home invasion

Meanwhile, police were dispatched to a luxury housing development in Tambon Nong Prue, Chonburi Province, after a Chinese man was attacked during a house invasion.

When they arrived, they discovered the house owner, Mr. Qian Peng Yi, visibly scared and with marks from being tied up with a cable. He informed police that three Chinese males broke into his home at 9 p.m., one of whom brandished a gun at him and directed him to his bedroom.

They bound his hands and feet, gagged him with fabric, taped his head, and forced him into the bed. The intruders then attempted to compel him into transferring 10 million baht in cryptocurrencies to them, endangering the life of his 33-year-old cousin who was in a second-floor bedroom.

While they scoured the house in search of riches, Mr. Peng Yi managed to flee and hide; he subsequently observed them leave with his cousin. Officials investigated the property and analyzed security camera footage from the incident and surrounding areas.

Around 9 p.m., a 30-year-old van driver came at the Bang Lamung police station after being contacted by an agency to carry Chinese customers from Pattaya to Suvarnabhumi Airport.

The driver informed authorities that he was supposed to pick them up at a motel about a kilometer from the Chinese businessman’s home. He then drove them to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, arriving at 1 a.m. and receiving 1,800 baht.

The driver took a snapshot of the group smoking at the airport gate and identified one of them as the victim’s cousin. Police suspected coordination between her and the three suspects in her cousin’s heist, who all departed Thailand on the same aircraft.

Other Bangkok News:

Police in Bangkok Discover Six Vietnamese Tourists Dead in 5 Star Hotel

Police in Bangkok Discover Six Vietnamese Tourists Dead in 5 Star Hotel

Crime

Son of Thailand’s Leading Legal Scholar on Corruption Arrested for Running Online Gambling Network

The son of a former senator and leading economist and expert on corruption and gambling in Thailand has been arrested for on charges of running an online gambling network and its payment system.

Police from Thailand’s Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) have confiscated assets worth more than (US$ 11.1 million) 400 million baht.

Narote Piriyarangsan, 33, was arrested following crackdowns in three sites around the city, according to Pol Maj Gen Athip Pongsiwapai, commander of the police Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD).

Mr Narote’s father, Sangsit Piriyarangsan, is an economist who has written articles and books about corruption and gambling. He was one of the appointed senators that were investigating the government’s intention to legalize casino gaming before their terms expired.

Police also detained 39-year-old Narayut Narakaew, the owner of the gambling website 69pgslot.com. The Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the couple for operating an internet gambling service and money laundering.

According to the Bangkok Post, police seized two desktop computers, one laptop computer, 14 mobile phones, 21 bank passbooks, 53 ATM cards, and four high-end cars — a Ferrari 926 GTS, an Aston Martin, a Lexus, and a Subaru — totaling more than 400 million baht.

Police launched the inquiry after discovering the online gambling site, which accepted funds via an automatic deposit-withdrawal system through bank accounts and deposits in the AskMePay system. Players scanned the VPay QR code as well as the QR codes for Heng Online 888 or Heng Pay Company.

Police also discovered that payments received via QR code scans were transferred to the account of Heng Pay Co and then to the gambling website’s mule accounts using AskMePay, which did not use banks’ face recognition scanning. An inquiry indicated a monthly turnover of approximately 5 billion baht.

According to investigators, the website has been up and running for around four years, with the payment mechanism in use for roughly eight months.

According to Pol Maj Gen Athip, Mr Narote owns the gaming website’s payment systems and is the director of Heng Pay Co. After gathering evidence, authorities requested arrest warrants for 14 people.

Thailand does not allow almost any kind of gaming. Even though the law doesn’t say anything specific about online gaming, it is still considered gambling. The country has pretty strict rules about gambling. Thai punters can bet on the national lottery and horse races, but they can’t bet on any other types of games.

But it’s not a secret that there is a huge illegal gaming business in Thailand, even though it’s illegal.

The illegal casinos, online betting shops, underground lotteries, and pop-up bookies that take bets on everything from cockfights to Muay Thai make a shadow economy that is worth billions of dollars every year.