The transfer was confirmed by posts on the official Patong Police Facebook page yesterday (Dec 6).
Col Chalermchai was welcomed to his new position by an assembly of officers in front of Patong Police Station, and presented with more than a dozen bouquets by a host well-wishers, including Weerawit Krueasombat, President of the Patong Entertainment Business Association (PEBA).
Meanwhile, Patong Police Chief Col Sujin Nilabodi has been promoted to the post of Deputy Commander of the Phang Nga Provincial Police.
Before taking up his post in Patong, one of Col Chalermchai’s last acts as Cherng Talay Police Chief was to have his officers get two taxi drivers to “surrender” for the vicious beating of a Grab driver who suffered a punctured lung when he was beaten with a piece of wood during an attack near Bang Tao Beach last Saturday night (Dec 2).
He also issued a report in September to inform Pol Gen Torsak Sukwimol - deputy national police chief at the time, now Commissioner-General of the Royal Thai Police ‒ of the arrest and impending charges against well-known MMA fighter Khusein Askhabov and his twin brother Khasan.
The brothers were arrested in connection with three Kazakh nationals forcing their way into an Italian man’s villa at a resort in Cherng Talay and holding him bound and gagged while beating him for information in an hours-long ordeal that ended with the three men flying out of Phuket to Dubai after robbing the Italian man of more than B12 million in personal belongings.
All the senior ranking officers down the chain of command to Region 8 Police, Phuket Provincial Police and even the Phuket Governor and Thalang District Chief were also copied in on the report.
However, the Askhabov brothers were later cleared of the charges and released.
Yet no details of the incident were ever reported by Col Chalermchai or any other officers under his command at Cherng Talay Police. The news broke only after a copy of the report was provided to The Phuket News. even after the news broke, Cherng Talay Police remained silent on the attack.
Col Chalermchai’s policy of silence on police action is somewhat commensurate with the public image policy maintained by former Patong Police Chief Col Sujin, with Patong Police regularly reporting minor police action in the tourism town ‒ but remaining steadfastly silent on any major incidents.
Col Sujin and his officers at Patong Police Station remained silent on the gang attack and subsequent shootings on Bangla Rd only two weeks ago.
Col Sujin was also serving as Patong Police Chief when a 25-year-old noodle vendor from Trang was shot and beaten by a drunken, off-duty Phuket Provincial Police officer on Bangla Rd in February 2021.
In both cases, Col Sujin deferred to senior Provincial Police officers to provide comments and explanations to the press.
If no senior officers step forward, police remain silent on such incidents that affect tourism ‒ just as they remain silent on the killings of a 19-year-old woman from Luxembourg and a 21-year-old American man in an accident in Rawai last month.
Patong Police post regular brief reports on people illegally selling beers on the street or fireworks on Patong Beach, and more recently charges filed against business operators for employing minors in “service establishments”, namely massage shops.
Col Sujin’s policy did see Patong Police marked as the “most moral” and “most transparent” police station in Phuket in the annual ‘Integrity and Transparency Assessment’ (ITA) conducted by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).
In contrast, Cherng Talay Police were given a pass mark of only 55.39%, and, as with most police stations in Phuket, marked with the note “Must improve urgently”.
Of note, the police transfers follow Phuket Immigration Chief Col Thanet Sukchai last week submitting his resignation from government service over “morals”. His resignation was refused, and instead he was transferred to Prachuap Khiri Khan Immigration Office.