Police nab two Excise officials in kidnap sting operation
Two Excise Department officials have been arrested for allegedly trying to extort 300,000 baht from a mobile phone shop in Samut Prakan province.
Police nabbed the officials during a sting operation on Wednesday afternoon after Wu Yiwen, the owner of a mobile phone shop in Soi Uthong 37/2, lodged a complaint.
Wu said a group of seven men claiming to be from Excise Department had raided his shop in search of contraband goods earlier on Wednesday. They detained the shop manager and a Myanmar staffer and took them away in a pickup truck.
The group then called Wu and demanded 300,000 baht cash in exchange for letting the employees go. Wu managed to negotiate the price down to 50,000 baht.
Police then staged a sting operation by having Wu tell the group to meet him at a filling station on Sukhumvit Road in Pak Nam, where he would give them the money.
Three members of the group showed up in the pickup truck, with the shop manager and staffer in the passenger seats. Police then emerged from hiding, stopped the vehicle and arrested the three men. Two were later identified as officials of the Audit, Prevention and Suppression Bureau, under the Excise Department, while the other suspect is a civilian.
Police also found two vests with the Excise Department logo in the vehicle.
Investigators are interrogating the suspects for information to track down the rest of the gang.
