Highway scandal shuffles easy pass cops to Yala’s police operations centre

The Highway Police Division’s acting commissioner transferred 42 of the department’s officers involved in the easy pass sticker scandal to the Royal Thai Police Operations Centre in the southern province of Yala. The identities of each officer have not been revealed.

The easy pass sticker scandal was uncovered by Move Forward Party (MFP) MP Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn at the beginning of this month. Wiroj made known that several logistic companies and drivers placed special stickers on their overloaded trucks to obtain a special pass.

To acquire these stickers, the drivers or their respective companies were required to pay bribes as requested by certain police officers within the Highway Police Division and other relevant departments. The design of the stickers and the amount of the bribe varied depending on the region and the type of delivery service.

Yesterday afternoon, Wiroj and the President of the Land Transport Federation of Thailand visited the Royal Thai Police (RTP) Headquarters to submit evidence on the issue to the Inspector General’s office to facilitate a police investigation.

Wiroj spoke to the media yesterday and said that he did not want officers to focus on the logistic companies or truck drivers as they were not the root cause of the issue. Wiroj said…

“It is not fair to blame the companies and the drivers for performing illegal acts. When the system becomes like this, they have no choice but to comply. We can make it transparent together.”

The acting Commissioner of the Highway Police Division, Jaroonkiat Parnkaew, revealed to ThaiRath today that the committee submitted to him a list of 42 highway police names who requested bribes from truck drivers and logistic companies and gave special passes for their overloaded trucks. He would review the list and sign the official document to hasten the transfer by the end of today.

According to Jaroonkiat, the corrupt officers held the ranks, ranging from deputy superintendent to non-commissioned level officers However, at this stage, the identities of the individual officers cannot be revealed.

Jarroonkiat added that he believed there were other higher-ranking officers involved in the corruption, but they were from other departments. The investigation of other officers was far beyond his jurisdiction, so the Office of the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission will be responsible for it.