Noted Russian pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev has been charged with sexual molestation of a minor under 15 years of age, a child protection police officer said yesterday.
Police are compiling more evidence and will possibly charge him with other offences once evidence is verified, said Pol Lt Col Omsin Sukkarnkha, head of the children's and women's protection division of the provincial police.
He dismissed rumours that police were demanding money from the suspect to eventually drop the case, saying: "It is completely untrue, especially given that the suspect is a wellknown person. And that makes police exercise extra caution handling the case."
Police have charged a Thai man, Traiphob Bunphasong - who has allegedly provided sex services using underage Thai boys to many people, allegedly including Pletnev - with four offences: rape of a minor under 15 years of age; providing sexual gratification for others through prostitution; employing minors under 15 to perform lewd acts; and human trafficking of minors under 15.
The Office of the Private Education Commission, responding to media reports that Pletnev operated a music school in Thailand, said no permission had ever been given to him. OPEC secretarygeneral Charnwit Thabsuphan said operation of any musical school by Pletnev, if it existed, would have been illegal.
Supphakorn Noja, head of Pattaya's office of the Child Protection and Development Centre, said Internet cafes in Chon Buri and the Pattaya area had been used as hubs for sex service involving underage boys, occasionally with the owners helping encourage the young customers to provide the service.
In many cases, Supphakorn said, cafe owners encouraged the young customers to surf the Web and chat for long hours and offered to lend them money when they ran out of it. When the boys owed large sums in debts to them, the cafe owners would encourage the boys to give sex services to gay men, both Thais and foreigners.
Supphakorn said on Thursday that there were around 40 Thai boys who acknowledged giving sex services to gay men, either willingly on their own, or reluctantly because of the debts they owed to the cafe owners.