National —
The Thai national police chief has ordered a police inspector-general to look into an allegation made by a Chinese tourist that she paid Thai police officers to provide her “VVIP’’ services when she arrived at Suvarnabhumi airport.
A Chinese woman who went by the name ”choudan0302″ on the Douyin App, a Chinese version of Tiktok, posted a video clip of her and men who seemingly looked like Thai police officers at the airport.
The woman claimed she paid the officers in the video to obtain VVIP services, which included not having to wait in the immigration queue and transportation service in a police vehicle.
She said that she had her agent contact the police to pick her up and take her to a hotel in Pattaya. The pickup and transfer cost 7,000 baht and an extra 6,000 if it included a police motorcycle escort with a siren on, the woman said.
Her video later unsurprisingly went viral on Thai and international media, with many netizens demanding answers from the Thai police force.
Yesterday, January 21st, Pol. Maj. Gen. Archayaon Kraithong, spokesman for the Royal Thai Police, came out to tell a press conference that Pol. Gen. Damrongsak Kittipraphat, national police chief, had been notified of the incident and had ordered an investigation to clarify if the officers in the video were really police officers and if any rules were violated.
The incident had greatly damaged the Thai police’s image, the spokesperson said. He added that such services that the tourist claimed could not be done.
The use of a police motorcade could be provided to ensure safety for certain occasions only, such as to escort a caravan of school buses going on a trip to religious ceremonies, or to protect important political figures, police, and the country’s VIP foreign diplomats.
The motorcade service must also follow many traffic laws or cabinet resolutions, the spokesman stated. It could not be provided to anybody solely for private convenience.
The spokesperson said that if the officers in the video were proven to be police officers, they would face punishment.
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