Japanese businessman arrested for alleged sex with underage girls

Pol Colonel Setthaphat Na-Songkhla, commander of the Immigration Police Division 4, told a press conference at the Immigration Bureau on Thursday (August 8) that Kazuo (full name withheld) was arrested at a hotel in Khon Kaen province on Tuesday.
Police also arrested two Thai men for offering the three girls to the Japanese man. The two suspects were identified only as Phirapong, 57, and Sayumphoo, 54.
Setthaphat said Sayumphoo and Kazuo were arrested when the Thai man was delivering a 17-year-old girl, “C”, to him at the hotel.
Setthaphat said the Immigration division planned the arrest in coordination with Ban Phai Police Station in Muang district. The Ban Phai police had learned that a Japanese man came to a hotel in Khon Kaen several times to buy sex from underage Thai girls.
The police station conducted an investigation and found out that Phirapong allegedly brought the girls for the Japanese man.
Police later located two girls, who allegedly used to sleep with Kazuo. They were identified as “A”, aged 16, and “B”, 15.
“B” told police that she had sex with Kazuo for the first time in the middle of last year and she had sold sex to the man five times until April this year. Each time she was paid Bt10,000, but half of the money was taken by Phirapong.
“A” said she sold sex to Kazuo in May this year at the same rate.
After the two girls identified pictures of Kazuo and Phirapong, police obtained arrest warrants for them.
The Immigration police found out that Kazuo had visited Thailand 15 times last year and 15 times this year. He runs a hotel business in Japan, police said.