PHUKET: The undercover policeman who busted open Phuket's taxi ''mafia'' and was about to begin investigating the holiday island's jet-ski extortion gangs has been suddenly transferred to a less demanding role in another province.



Major General Paween Pongsirin is the latest in a string of police officers and administrators whose desire to straighten out Phuket's problems appears to have led to them being prematurely ''promoted'' before being able to complete their tasks.



As the leader of a small, hand-picked group of police from off Phuket, the work of Major General Paween and his team this year led to the breakthrough arrests of hundreds of taxi and tuk-tuk drivers in Kata-Karon and Patong.



Charges were also laid against individuals who allegedly sponsored the extortion, intimidation and corrupt activities of the drivers.



Now, with the transfer of the major-general, the undercover team of investigators is to be disbanded.



The shock move comes just as the off-island team were about to launch an investigation into Phuket's jet-ski gangs, who mostly operate from Patong beach.



It is believed the bank books of some people with connections to Phuket's jet-ski operators were about to be examined.



As a result of outstanding work on Phuket, Major General Paween was called earlier this month to another holiday island - Koh Tao - to help sort out the flawed police investigation into the murders of British tourists Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24.



The major general laid murder counts against two Burmese after being told where a victim's telephone had been discarded and on the basis of long interviews with the suspects and DNA evidence.



Major General Paween returned from a brief holiday yesterday to learn that he is being removed from his role overseeing investigations into Phuket taxi drivers and the soon-to-begin probe of jet-ski operators.



It is also not clear who will now oversee the prima facie cases that Major General Paween had established alleging that the managements at several Phuket resorts paid millions of baht to Phuket sunbed operators who said they ''owned'' Phuket's public beaches.



The transfer of Major General Paween and the disbanding of his off-island team of investigators appears to end any hope honest residents and expats on Phuket may have had of eliminating the corruption that still thrives on the holiday island.



Major General Paween was appointed to his special role on Phuket by Lieutenant General Panya Mamen, who was recently promoted from being Commander of Region 8 - which includes Phuket and all southern provinces - to a new role in Bangkok.



His replacement, Major General Decha Budnampeth, has yet to reveal his plan for dealing with the taxi and tuk-tuk ''mafia,'' the jet-ski extortionists and the corruption on Phuket that continues to thrive.