Surat Sappakun/AP Photo
- A Thai police colonel who owns 30 luxury cars has been charged with murdering a drug suspect by torture.
- Authorities searched his vast Bangkok estate on Wednesday, but he wasn't there.
- A video of the colonel showed him helping officers suffocate a handcuffed suspect while allegedly extorting money from him.
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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, reported The Bangkok Post.
Colonel 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 around $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, reported The Post.
Thitisan then demanded double the money. Video shows Thitisan 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, reported local media.
The video went viral and sparked a massive uproar online, and Thailand's national police chief on Tuesday ordered that all officers involved in the clip be sacked from the force.
Thitisan and six other police officers from the Muang station were charged in connection with the incident on Wednesday, the Royal Thai Police announced.
Five of them have been detained so far, said authorities, 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 sq. ft. home, but the colonel, who was given the nickname "Jo Ferrari" because of his penchant for expensive cars, was nowhere to be found, reported the Bangkok Post.
Instead, authorities discovered 13 luxury rides parked in his estate. Police checks revealed that his total collection of 30 vehicles included a Porsche, a Ferrari, and a Lamborghini, reported Thailand's Channel 7 News.
Two housekeepers told police that Thitisan, 39, typically only used his luxury home 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, per 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 corrupted agency, based on thousands of complaints lodged to her office.
A 2014 study by a former policeman and academic found that the majority of the country's corrupt officers were involved in the embezzlement of government funds, bribery, and protection rackets.