The Department of Special Investigation has begun its operations dealing with the anti-monarchy movement, setting up nine teams comprising nearly 300 agents from various agencies to do the task.
DSI director-general Tharit Phengdit said he could not tell whether the blacklisted 83 people whose assets had been frozen by the CRES were taking part in the movement. "We will look into their connections with the movement, but we cannot tell now how close they are to each other," he said.
Some members of the movement are related to the Democratic Alliance against Democracy, which is linked to the opposition Pheu Thai Party and took part in arranging the red-shirt protests in May, he added.
The DSI yesterday unveiled nine teams of officials comprising 200 DSI agents and 89 others from relevant agencies, including police. Each team is tasked with different roles in various areas, including intelligence and banking crimes.
The following tasks are handled by each team:
Team 1 Intelligence
Team 2 Technology and IT issues
Team 3 Banking, financial, taxes
Team 4 Foreign affairs
Team 5 Cases taken over from the police
Teams 6 and 7 Cases requested by the DSI
Team 8 Secretarial
Team 9 Support and supervision
No deadline has been set for the completion of all lese-majeste and anti-monarchy cases. "All cases involved a large number of people through complicated networks of operations. The overall DSI investigation will be lengthy, as these cases are different, and we need to exercise extra caution in handling them," Tharit added.
The DSI has identified two types of wrongdoing: online publication of lese-majeste content; and public statements in various forms, including public interviews, speeches during rallies and distribution of hard copies.
The wrongdoers involved are divided into three levels: the leadership and commanders, who allegedly funded the anti-monarchy operations, gave directions and tactics and issued ideological themes.
The second level are the "operatives", who delivered lese-majeste content or speeches as directed by the leadership - individually, as groups, or systematically as a whole. The third level are "the masses", who used public activities or gatherings to support the people in the second level.
The DSI took over a total of 256 lese-majeste cases from police since 2006, 194 of which had been completed and later resulted in indictment by public prosecutors. It will ask to take over another 38 cases from police.