Two westerners and a Thai transvestite have been arrested in connection with the molestation of at least three young boys in Pattaya.
Region 2 Children and Women’s Protection Center officers arrested German Karl Josef Ruppel, 69, and Briton Andrew John Tracey, 60, Feb. 1 in separate arrests in Pattaya and Bang Saray. Police also apprehended Rachan Panpleng, 51, who was accused with pimping as 12-year-old boy to an unidentified third foreigner.
Rappel was taken into custody at the Rina Lodge, where he allegedly paid a 14-year-old boy 200 baht for oral sex. Investigators alleged the German had found the boy at Chaimongkol Temple.
Karl Josef Ruppel is taken into custody by police officers.
Officers then apprehended Rachan, who they claim procured young boys for foreigners from shopping malls, then delivered them to a South Pattaya restaurant where their sexual services were sold for 2,000 baht. Rachan is accused of keeping half of that fee.
Tracey was arrested at his house in Bang Sarary where he’d allegedly been taking underage boys he picked up in Pattaya shopping malls, paying them 300-500 baht for sexual services.
Phalisorn Noja, director of Anti Human Trafficking and Child Abuse Center, said Tracey had been under surveillance for three years.
