A well-connected Pattaya karaoke club owner who has battled human trafficking charges for more than a year is now behind bars, but vowing to continue her battle against police she claimed defamed and framed her.
Paranisa Chainapanitku, 41, said she would appeal the bail decision by the Pattaya Provincial Court that keeps her in Pattaya Remand Prison while she fights back six charges laid out in an April 6 arrest warrant.
The owner of Nangfa Karaoke was accused of supporting, being involved in and making a business out of human trafficking, owning a business that involves trafficking or prostitution, and forcing others into prostitution and pimping.
The charges stem from a Jan. 8, 2016 raid of Nangfa led by Pol. Lt. Col. Klisanat Thanasupatan in which manager Somai Jongthanakamol was arrested and charged with human trafficking. The woman claimed that Paranisa promised to get her out of jail, but she was behind bars for more than a year.
During that time, she told police stories of how Paranisa allegedly used Nangfa to pimp out woman and even underage girls.
But even as lead investigator Pol. Lt. Col. Omsin Sukarnkha worked to build his case based on the Jan. 8 raid, the Central Road Soi 9 club was raided again in July and Paranisa arrested on site. She would not stay in custody long.
In the July 14 raid, Provincial Police Region 2 Lt. Col. Narawut Karamhito led a half-dozen officers to accuse the bar of illegal prostitution and lacking proper licenses. During the raid, which Paranisa said came after a clumsy and botched setup attempt by an undercover agent, Narawut allegedly claimed he would make the case disappear if Paranisa paid him 30,000 baht.
Paranisa dialed up national police chief Gen. Chakthip Chaijinda, but Narawut denied it was him. She then contacted then Region 2 chief Maj. Gen Amphon Buarubporn and, again, Narawut scoffed at the man on the line – until Amphon called Narawut’s phone number directly.
Paranisa was released and the disgraced officer was suspended and transferred to an inactive post. No charges of extortion ever have been brought against him, however.
The plot thickened in September last year when a former Nangfa cashier – and the daughter of the jailed manager – Namfon Jongthanakamol was arrested. The arrest came after Paranisa had filed a police complaint against her in March 2016.
Namfon told police then that she had worked at the karaoke for a month after her mother was arrested, but quit because Paranisa tried to lure her 13-year-old niece into prostitution.
However, accusations fell flat when the young girl appeared at Pattaya Police Station with Paranisa and other women. The girl told officers that, in fact, it was her aunt that brought her to a hotel and forced her to have sex with two men. Paranisa, she said, had stepped in to rescue her.
She says she has become the target of a witch hunt for going after Narawut. In a post to her Facebook page May 6, she accused a police investigator of defaming her and vowed to bring charges against him in order to clear her name in what she calls a frame job.
