PHATTHALUNG – Officers from Mueang Phatthalung Police Station arrested a female Thai police officer as an additional suspect in a case where a group of Thai men abducted a 29-year-old Indonesian man from Songkhla Province and took him to Phatthalung Province. They tortured him and recorded a video to send to his sister in Indonesia, demanding a ransom.
On May 18, police, armed with an arrest warrant from the Phatthalung Provincial Court, arrested Police Senior Sergeant Major Ploenpis, 45, attached to the Provincial Police Region 9. The police then took her into custody in Surat Thani Province while she was driving back from Bangkok. She was taken for interrogation at Mueang Phatthalung Police Station before being brought to court for detention at the same time. Police opposed bail.
Initially, the female police officer denied all charges, even though the Phatthalung police investigation team found that she drove the car that took Mr. Syawana, 29, an Indonesian national, and two of his friends to be detained at a house in Phatthalung Province.
In this case, Thai police officers were contacted by officials from the Indonesian Consulate in Songkhla Province, who received information from the Indonesian Embassy on May 11. They reported that Mr. Syawana was taken by a group of Thai men from the Hat Yai district of Songkhla Province to Mueang Phatthalung district. He was then tortured by the Thai men, who recorded a video and sent it to his sister in Indonesia, demanding a ransom of 2,300,000 Thai baht.
Mr. Syawana’s relatives had already transferred a partial amount of 800,000 baht. On May 14, the police rescued Mr. Syawana and his two friends from a house in Village No. 7, Tha Khae Subdistrict, Mueang District.
They also arrested Mr. Weerasak Thong-ubol, 37, a key suspect. He confessed that the female police officer drove Mr. Syawana to the house and told him to detain the victim.
Phatthalung forensic officials conducted a DNA test inside the car and obtained court warrants to search two houses in Tha Khae Subdistrict, Mueang District, and Khao Chaison Subdistrict, Khao Chaison District, Phatthalung Province, to find additional evidence.
Weerasak was a former subordinate of “Paeng Na Nod,” a 37-year-old fugitive who orchestrated a prison break by unlocking his shackles and escaping from a hospital in Nakhon Ratchasima Province to Phatthalung Province in October 2023. Police believe he later fled to Indonesia and have been unable to apprehend him up to the present day.
