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Published on October 20, 2007

A police-military force raided the house in Narathiwat's Sungai Kolok that allegedly belonged to a drug syndicate and found nine PVC pipes containing a huge amount of cash.

Seven of the pipes were transferred from the house to Muno police station and the money in the pipes was later counted. The amount came to Bt30,496,800.

The core dispute concerns an informant who told journalists days later that some Bt40 million had disappeared - perhaps stolen by the officials involved.

Colonel Manas Kongpan, who led the raid, said two of the cash-filled pipes had been handed as a reward to a group of informants who tipped off the officials.

"The informants might have misunderstood that the pipes they got were of equal length to those the officials took to the police station," he said. "In fact they were smaller - each was only 30 centimetres long - and contained only Bt4 million, not Bt40 million as they suggested."

The informants estimated that each pipe contained between Bt10 million and Bt14 million and told the media that the total amount should be at least Bt70 million, he added.

It is normal practice that an informant who tips off the authorities in any criminal case involving money is rewarded with 10 per cent of the amount and that officials involved in the operation would get 5 per cent, Manas said.

"But this kind of practice should not be publicised, since it is our norm to hand the confiscated money in a criminal case as a reward to the informant and only disclose the remaining amount for the public record," he said.

The story had broken as there were conflicts among the informants, who wanted more money, he added.

The authorities yesterday summoned all the concerned officials, including Manas and Narathiwat police chief Maj-General Phongsak Nakvijit, for questioning in Hat Yai.

Phongsak denied any acknowledgement of the other two PVC pipes, insisting there were only seven pipes transferred to the police station and they contained only Bt30 million.

"We counted the money transparently. Officials from the Government Savings Bank counted the notes with a machine in front of the military, police officials and the media," he said.

The Nation