- A Thai
police colonel who owns 30luxury cars has been charged with murdering a drug suspect. - Authorities searched his vast Bangkok estate on Wednesday, but he wasn't there.
- A video purportedly showed the colonel helping officers suffocate the suspect and extorting money from him.
Thai police are on the hunt for a police colonel nicknamed "Jo Ferrari" after he was accused of torturing a suspected drug dealer to death, the Bangkok Post reported.
Col. Thitisan Utthanaphon came under scrutiny after a video surfaced that appeared to show him and six other officers suffocating 24-year-old Chiraphong Thanaphiphat with plastic bags in a botched attempt to extort about $60,000 from the man.
The graphic video clip, put on Facebook on Tuesday by a lawyer, showed officers initially demanding $30,000 from the man for his release. The unnamed suspect initially agreed to pay the amount, the Post reported.
Thitisan then demanded double the money. Video shows him instructing officers to wrap plastic bags around the suspect's head and beat him. After several minutes, officers realized the man was no longer breathing and tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him.
The police colonel told his men to list the cause of death as drug overdose, local media reported.
The video went viral and sparked a massive uproar online, and
Thitisan and six other police officers from the Muang police station were charged in connection with the incident on Wednesday, the Royal Thai Police announced.
Five of them have been detained so far, authorities said, while Thitisan and another officer are still at large. All of them face charges of joint murder by torture, wrongly causing injury as officers, and coercing someone as a group of five or more, a Royal Thai Police spokesperson said in a statement.
Authorities searched Thitisan's 86,000-square-foot home, but the colonel, who was given the nickname "Jo Ferrari" because of his penchant for expensive cars, was nowhere to be found, the Post reported.
Instead, authorities discovered 13 luxury vehicles parked in his estate. Police checks revealed that his total collection of 30 vehicles included a Porsche, a Ferrari, and a Lamborghini, Thailand's Channel 7 News reported.
Two housekeepers told police that Thitisan, 39, typically used his luxury home only on weekends and spent the rest of his time in Nakhon Sawan province - about 150 miles north of Bangkok - where he oversaw the Muang police station, according to the Post.
Corruption is widespread among Thailand's police force, where officers are paid an average of $5,400 a year. Thailand's chief ombudsman once said that the country's police force is its most corrupt agency, based on thousands of complaints lodged to her office.
A 2014 study by a former police officer and academic found that the majority of the country's corrupt officers were involved in the embezzlement of government funds, bribery, and protection rackets.