Officers swooped and arrested a drug trafficking gang that managed to avoid capture for months by using a car license plate flipper to trick police.
The Metropolitan Police Bureau in Bangkok held a press conference yesterday to reveal details of the license plate flipper scam and the arrest of a major drug trafficking gang in the central part of Thailand.
The Deputy Commander of the Metro Police, Jirasan Kaew-ek, revealed his team arrested a drug dealer last month who confessed that he bought his illegal narcotics from a bigger fish named Kittisak.
The police had been monitoring Kittisak and his two friends, Jack and Champ, who rented a house in Nonthaburi province near Bangkok, for months.
Officers eventually tracked down the criminals and raided their drugs den, seizing in the process some 120 bags of heroin, 162 kilogrammes of methamphetamine, and 94 kilogrammes of ketamine.
Kittisak made known they were hired by a dealer in northern Thailand and earned 200,000 baht per month for trafficking his drugs.
Kittisak said they made four drug deliveries starting in July. He revealed they managed to avoid arrest by using the license plate flipper, which they ordered online for 30,000 baht.
The driver can operate the device from inside the car using a remote control, which rotates the plate within a few seconds.
The Commissioner of the Royal Thai Police, Damrongsak Kittipaphat, ordered every police checkpoint to focus on the car registration plates to avoid similar cases.
Damrongsak issued a warning to criminals repeating the trick because they would be violating Sections 264 and 265 of the Criminal Law. Anyone who fails to follow the rules faces imprisonment from six months to one year and their car registration license will be revoked.
Damrongsak also urged the merchants of the gadget to stop selling it. The commissioner warned license plate sellers face prosecution if the flipper is used illegally.