The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has set up a disciplinary committee to investigate an official of the Public Works Department, arrested by anti-corruption police and officials from the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission yesterday.
Three other suspects were also apprehended in separate raids.
The key suspect, only identified as “Peempong”, was served with an arrest warrant during a raid on his house in Nonthaburi province. A Mercedes Benz, a Toyota, five Harley Davidson motorcycles and ten pawn shop tickets, worth about three million baht, were found at the house.
Police say they had checked his bank accounts and estimated that the suspect has about 79 million baht in assets.
The four suspects are accused of demanding a nine million baht bribe from the owner of a golf course in the Suwinthawong area of Bangkok, by claiming that they could change the design of a road construction project which cut across the golf course, linking Suwinthawong with Liab Waree roads.
The group claimed that, in order to avoid the golf course, they would change the designs and build a tunnel under the golf course.
The controversy began in 2018, but the golf course owner learned the truth last year, that there was no such road project, and filed a complaint with the anti-corruption police, resulting in an investigation and the arrests yesterday of Peempong and three other suspects.
