The CCTV firm and the house of Porn

SAMUT PRAKAN: A man was arrested March 15 after police found a wire leading from his house to a tiny camera hidden in the ceiling of the bathroom of the house next door where six women lived.

The camera, which had apparently been in place for five months, was discovered only when the voyeur was overcome with desire and rang up his victims to tell them how good she and her relatives looked when they were bathing.

About 7 pm that day, Capt Mongkol Phreukchat, an investigating officer at Samrong Neua Police Station, received a call from a woman somewhat appropriately named Porn, 44, (the victim requested her full name not be published) saying she had found a camera hidden in her bathroom ceiling.

Obviously somewhat excited by the nature of the call, Capt Mongkol together with station Superintendent Warawat Watnakonbancha and a number of other police officers rushed to the house in question to investigate the footage of the six women.

At the house, the team of officers were met by K. Porn and her five daughters and nieces aged between 14 and 17 who lived with her.

K. Porn led the officers to the upstairs bathroom and showed them where the camera was concealed.

The officers then followed the wire from the camera and found it led to the house next door, which was home to Digital First and Service Network Ltd – a company specializing in installing closed-circuit television cameras.

The officers knocked on the door and were met by the owner of the company, Tharathon Mamongkol, 26. The wire from the spy camera led to a computer in Tharathon’s bedroom. Officers turned on the computer and a quick look through the hard drive revealed an abundance of photos and videos of his six neighbors.

Tharathon confessed to installing the camera and was initially charged with trespassing, which carries a maximum sentence of one-year imprisonment.

Police also confiscated his computer for more detailed inspection and contacted the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology to see if they knew of anything else that they could charge Thararthon with.

K. Porn told police that about five months earlier, Tharathon came to the house asking if he could rig a cable TV wire from her house to his.

As he had previously been a good neighbor, she allowed it. Then on the morning of March 15, a man called the house and said that he had seen pictures of everyone in the house bathing and it was, apparently, so sexy that he couldn’t stand it any more, K. Porn said.

This immediately raised her suspicions about how anyone could have seen her and her young relatives soaped up, so she asked everyone in the house to help her search the bathroom until they eventually found the camera.