By Thai Newsroom Reporters
PRIME MINISTER ANUTIN Charnvirakul was today (Nov.6) encouraged to dismiss Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Agriculture & Cooperatives Minister/de facto Klatham boss Thammanat Prompao due to his suspected association with transnational scammers and fraudsters otherwise the government’s anti-scam measures might not be successful.
House Committee on State Security, Border Affairs & National Strategies and Reform Chair/People’s MP Rangsiman Rome repeatedly called on the prime minister-cum-interior minister who concurrently performs as leader of the Bhumjaithai, core of the current coalition government, to fire the de facto Klatham boss Thammanat from his cabinet otherwise, he said, the government would invariably fail in the first place to secure public confidence in any efforts to combat the Cambodia-based rogue rackets devastatingly preying on Thai and world victims.
Thammanat has failed to testify before Rangsiman’s panel over his suspected, surreptitious association with persons allegedly involved in scam and money-laundering activities based in Cambodia including notorious wheeler-dealer Benjamin Mauerberger, alias Ben Smith, among others.
Ben Smith was reportedly listed by the United States Treasury Department among a number of rogue businessmen including Yim Leak, chairperson of Cambodia-based BIC Group, who acted as advisers to senior Cambodian leader Hun Sen.
“We would not expect Thammanat to resign but we do expect the prime minister to fire him from the cabinet. Given his suspected association (with scam elements), he could not stay on as deputy prime minister or else the government’s scam crackdown measures would only be fruitless,” the House committee chair said.
The prime minister has been invariably criticised for not doing enough to combat the transnational crimes and allegedly failing to take action against Thammanat and other politicians suspected of personal association, albeit in surreptitious, hush-hush fashion, with those rogue rackets.
Meanwhile, former deputy police chief Pol. Gen. Surachate Hakparn today testified before the House Committee on State Security, Border Affairs & National Strategies and Reform over alleged connections between some police officers, particularly those attached to the Police Cyber Task Force, and online gambling operators and call-centre fraudsters.
Pol. Gen. Surachate alleged that kickbacks had been regularly paid to the corrupt police officers via “mule accounts” and took to task police chief Pol. Gen. Kitrat Panpet for naming a police general, namely Pol. Lt. Gen. Trairong Pewpan who has been suspected of clandestine connection with the online gambling operators, as head of a police working group assigned to crack down on those rogue racketeers.
In another development, the prime minister is more or less speculated to dissolve the House of Representatives as soon as early next month to preempt a censure motion which might otherwise be lodged by the opposition bloc upon the reopening of the parliamentary session scheduled for Dec.12. Topping the agenda of a marathon censure debate would very likely be about the transnational scamming and money-laundering activities.
The prime minister who is not legally empowered to dissolve the House to call a general election after a censure motion has been formally filed at parliament has been invariably viewed as specifically considerate and cooperative to Thammanat as the de facto boss of the coalition partner who had endorsed him for prime minister among 300-plus MPs last September.
CAPTIONS:
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, left in above photo and right in Front Page photo, and Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Agriculture & Cooperatives Minister/de facto Klatham boss Thammanat Prompao. Top photo – Naewna, Front Page photo – Thai Rath
Insert – House Committee on State Security, Border Affairs & National Strategies and Reform Chair/People’s MP Rangsiman Rome. Photo – PPTVHD36
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