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Phuket Parkland Probe: Investigators Looking Closely at Roles of Four People

Friday, July 18, 2014
PHUKET: The National Anti-Corruption Commission opted yesterday to set up a sub-committee to look at the largest of the areas of land allegedly encroached upon in Phuket's Sirinath National Park.

According to NACC spokesperson Wicha Maharkhun, the sub-committee will focus on four roles in transactions involving the land on which the luxury Trisara resort now sits;

.. investigating officers at the Interior Ministry;

.. officers working for the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry;

.. officers at the Phuket Land Titles Office;

.. local area village chiefs.

A long-running investigation into possible misappropriation of parkland has accelerated since the Army took control of Thailand in a military coup on May 22.

Investigators have made the point that if illegal transactions have occurred, they may have taken place years ago without the knowledge of the present owners.

Comments

Comments have been disabled for this article.

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If I illegally buy part of a national park in order to build a luxury resort and villa estate, am I guilty when claiming that I failed to do due diligence?

In any case, I would diversify my assets and be much more careful next time.

Luckily if nobody noticed for the past 30 years, then I would have already earned a truly handsome profit at the expense of the public.

Posted by Plausible Deniability on July 19, 2014 10:57

Editor Comment:

Failure to do due diligence is not a crime.

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Also, what kind of due diligence are we talking about? You get a real, official chanote from the land office with all the bells and whistles. And then you are supposed to launch a private investigion before buying or what? The chanote titles are not fakes, they are just issued illegaly by public servants, 30 years ago. How much 'due diligence' would be needed?

Posted by christian on July 20, 2014 20:37

Editor Comment:

Indeed. The owner of at least one of the resorts involves says they did all they could to check. Depends, I guess, how historic the problem is, if there is one, and how well the tracks of those involved have been covered.

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Upgrades of land parcels from a no title or low title to nor sor 4 = chanote has been a very lucrative business in Thailand as long as I have been here. If you do a due diligence on a piece of land then you will find that it is chanote but you will not see that it was done illegally. So who should be punished ?

Posted by Sailor on July 20, 2014 21:40

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In some 1st world countries there are title insurance companies (backed by the government)for issues like this. They do the due diligence, take the hit if a problem comes up in the future and initiates the law suits. Is this service available in Thailand?

Posted by Dkin on July 21, 2014 10:57


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