2nd Pattaya police chief axed in June following Soi 6 underage raid

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For the second time in less than a month, Pattaya’s police chief was suspended after Interior Ministry officials discovered an underage girl working in a Soi 6 bar.
For the second time in less than a month, Pattaya’s police chief was suspended after Interior Ministry officials discovered an underage girl working in a Soi 6 bar.

For the second time in less than a month, Pattaya’s police chief was suspended after Interior Ministry officials discovered an underage girl working in a Soi 6 bar.

Pol. Col. Phongphan Wongmaneethet, who was appointed June 3 to replace Pol. Col. Prawit Chosang after he was suspended, was removed permanently from the position by Chonburi’s police commander June 24.

The action came after officials from the ministry’s Department of Provincial Administration raided the Coming Bar on the notorious North Pattaya soi and found a 17-year-old Thai girl providing prostitution services to foreign customers.

The bar was ordered closed for five years with its Taiwanese and Chinese owners set to be deported and blacklisted from the kingdom. They and the Thai manager were arrested and charged with human trafficking, pimping, managing a prostitution business, employing minors at a bar, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Phongphan’s removal came exactly three weeks after Chonburi police chief Pol. Maj. Gen. antachart Suppamongkol suspended Prawit and four of his top deputies following an after-hours Interior Ministry raid on two South Pattaya pubs were 155 people tested positive for drugs.

The Soi 6 ministry crackdown was prompted by a complaint from a children’s and women’s protection foundation about underage girls working in the Soi 6 brothel.