Manop
Rungsisuk and his sister Sophit Sukhcharoen have been arrested for human
trafficking and prostitution charges.
Boonlua Chatree
A North Pattaya beer bar was raided last week for
allegedly trafficking underage prostitutes.
Manop Rungsisuk, who claimed to be a policy and planning
analyst at the office of permanent-secretary of the Prime Minister’s office
and his 32-year-old sister Sophit Sukhcharoen were apprehended at the Shada
beer bar opposite the Tiffany Theater in North Pattaya Dec. 26 after a
foreigner cooperating with the Pattaya Tourist Police arranged the purchase
of sexual services from a 17-year-old.
Officers from the Tourist Police as well as the women and
children’s protection division seized the money used to buy the girl, a
ledger of other underage employees, and a box of condoms.
Police said Manop, 30, said he was working as a cashier
to help his sister and did not know of any prostitution being run out of the
bar. With evidence that the teen girl was dispatched out to a Naklua hotel,
officers didn’t give the alleged bureaucrat’s claims any credence.
The 17-year-old girl from Nakhon Ratchasima said she’d
been tricked into working as a prostitute and had not been paid despite
servicing three customers.
Both bar employees were slapped with human trafficking
and prostitution charges.
