Massage parlors and politics

PPT saw the news stories on the police raid on Victoria’s Secret Massage and didn’t think too much about it. Yes, a rip-off name, but that’s not unusual. Yes, associated with Chuwit Kamolvisit back in the day, but that was known. And, yes, cops were on the take, but that’s actually normal. We didn’t take much notice of the social media traffic either.

But the Bangkok Post has a really interesting article that raises political issues and links to the military junta. It begins with a discussion of the deeply politicized DSI:

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has dismissed speculation that the crackdown on suspected human trafficking at Victoria’s Secret Massage on Friday was politically motivated.

It goes on:

The operation, carried out by the DSI along with the military and local police officers, was not instructed by anyone on high, neither was it an order from the Justice Minister, the permanent secretary for justice or the DSI chief, said DSI deputy chief Songsak Raksaksakul.

“Even though in an intelligence report our investigators have shown that the group of [real] massage parlour owners who are not nominees of anyone else are connected with certain politicians in the North and West forming a new political party, Friday’s raid on the parlour really had nothing to do with politics,” he said.

“They [those politicians] have tried to portray this operation as politically motivated revenge, even though they actually had violated the law,” he said.

To be honest, we don’t know whether this rumor has some truth to it, but we did notice mention of Chuwit and later news that he was interviewed by police:

The DSI also plans to invite former politician and broadcaster Chuvit Kamolvisit, who founded Victoria’s Secret Massage, to provide investigators with more information on the parlour’s business, Pol Col Songsak said.

Since Mr Chuvit previously mentioned in public that Ms Sasithorn is only a nominee and that the real owner of the parlour is Kampol Wirathepsuporn after acquiring it from him, he should have more in-depth information that would be useful for the DSI’s probe, Pol Col Songsak said.

Deputy National Police Chief Pol. Gen. Srivara Rangseepromnakul personally questioned Chuwit.

So we went off in search of Kampol. This is what we found: in a King Power magazine from 2015:Interesting how really wealthy police, army bosses, King Power and Kampol are all linked through this event.