Preecha, lottery vendors charged on additional counts

Kanchanaburi teacher Preecha Kraikruan, 50, the centre of the 30-million-baht lottery dispute, and the two women lottery vendors arrive at the the Counter Corruption Division (CCD) office in Bangkok to hear the additional charge on Thursday.(Photo by Tawatchai Kemgumnerd)

Kanchanaburi teacher Preecha Kraikruan and two women lottery vendors on Thursday acknowledged additional charges of supporting a police officer’s meddling with witness testimony in the 30-million-baht lottery dispute.

Mr Preecha, 50, a teacher of Buddhism at Thepmongkol Rangsee School in Kanchanaburi’s Muang district, lottery vendors Ratanaporn Supathip and Patcharida Promta, accompanied by their lawyer, arrived at the Counter Corruption Division (CCD) office to hear the charges.

Before meeting with investigators, Mr Preecha, the man at centre of the scandal, said he was not unduly worried about the case.

Mr Preecha and the two lottery vendors were then charged with supporting former Kanchanaburi Provincial Police commander Suthi Puangpikul’s dereliction of duty in his handling of the winning lottery tickets case.

Pol Maj Gen Suthi was found to have ordered changes made to witness statements to support Mr Preecha's claim to ownership of five disputed lottery tickets.

On Feb 28, Mr Preecha and Mrs Ratanaporn were arrested in Kanchanaburi on charges of filing false information with police, claiming that a set of five winning tickets from the Nov 1 draw belonged to Mr Preecha, and accusing retired officer Pol Lt Jaroon Wimool, 62, of theft.

Both denied all charges and the court granted them bail set at 100,000 baht each, in part due to Mr Preecha's position as a teacher at a government school.

Pol Maj Gen Kamon Rienracha, chief of the CCD, said on Thursday morning that Mr Preecha and the two lottery vendors were aware of changes made to the content of investigation reports that Kanchanaburi police investigators handling the case submitted to the Provincial Police Region 7. The three also signed their names to the altered testimonials.

Last week, the CCD inquiry panel concluded that Pol Maj Gen Suthi violated Section 157 of the Criminal Code and had been derelict in his handling of the case.

Under Pol Maj Gen Suthi's supervision, changes were made repeatedly to dates, places and witnesses' answers in an interrogation report, to support teacher Preecha's claim to ownership of the set of first-prize-winning lottery tickets.

Two police interrogators from Kanchanaburi were treated as witnesses in building the case against the provincial police commander.

The CCD would submit the findings in the case against Pol Maj Gen Suthi to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) within 30 days, Pol Maj Gen Kamon said. (continues below)

The set of five winning lottery tickets.

The lottery dispute came to light when Mr Preecha claimed in December that he had purchased the prize-winning tickets with the No.533726 that won a first prize in the Nov 1 draw last year, and filed a complaint against retired Pol Lt Jaroon, who cashed in the tickets. Mr Preecha accused the retired officer of picking up the tickets after he dropped them before the results of the Nov 1 lottery draw were announced.

As a result, the cash prize from the Nov 1, 2017 draw was frozen pending the conclusion of the probe. Pol Lt Jaroon insisted the tickets belonged to him, and said he had already spent some of the money and refused to hand over any of it.

The case was originally handled by Provincial Police Region 7, which oversees Kanchanaburi and other western provinces.

That investigation concluded Mr Preecha was the real owner of the tickets, based on the testimony of witnesses. The national police chief in February ordered the regional police to transfer the case to the Crime Suppression Division after Pol Lt Jaroon filed a complaint in Bangkok. He accused Preecha of filing false information.

The lottery case led to the transfer of the Kanchanaburi provincial chief and two other police investigators to Bangkok.