Arrested Korat Man Sold Guns On â€˜face bookâ€™

October 23, 2013

Korat police set up a ‘sting operation’ to purchase guns from a local man, who sold via ‘face book’ and sent them to his customers by mail. They did this several times before arresting him, then officers searching his house found many guns, cartridges and equipment used for gun modification.

NAKHORNRATCHASIMA – October 22, 2013 [PDN]; – At the investigation room of Nakhornratchasima’s Provincial Police Division, the Commander, Police Major General Phongdech Phrommijit, together with the Superintendent, Police Colonel Sonthaya Taedaengpech plus the police detection team, investigated a serious crime. The alleged criminal was 24 years old Mr. Thossaphan Atthadok, of 251, Moo-3, Tambon Hua Thalay at Amphur Meuang in Nakhornratchasima Province, who is the defendant involved in smuggling and selling guns illegally plus having ammunition in his possession. The police seized all the guns and cartridges, including a lot of equipment for modifying the guns.

Police Major General Phongdech revealed that this defendant had smuggled weapons and ammunition to sell via internet or face-book websites by using the name of Mr. Thossaphan Atthakot or Orh Roblok. There are photographs of Mr. Thossaphan shooting on the first page of face book and he also gives his telephone number for the customers to contact him. Most of the information displayed is pictures and video clips that demonstrate the shooting of many types of guns and after the police checked the conversation between him and the customers, then they believed that he sold the weapons and ammunition illegally. Accordingly, the police planned a ‘sting operation’ to for the purchase of a shotgun at the price of 10,000 THB (Thai baht). They made an appointment for a place to receive the gun and when Mr. Thossaphon arrived at the appointed spot, the police arrested him and went to search his house. Here they seized 2- shotguns, 2-‘receivers’ for 11mm gun barrels, many gun components of varying calibres, 10-shotgun cartridges, 17- single .22 rimfire cartridges and a lot of equipment for modifying the guns.

Mr. Thossaphan claimed that he smuggled guns for so a long time to sell via face book, which he then delivered to his customers by mail all over the Kingdom of Thailand. In the past, he chose to sell only to a group of regular customers, but during the past 3-months he stated that he had faced the problem of getting less revenue than his expenses, so he had to find some new customers. Recently he had sold shotguns and various types of firearms in the price range of 8,000-10,000 THB per gun to five different customers. However, there were many customers interested in his wares, so they continuously contacted him to buy the guns. In his greed, he didn’t concern himself enough with checking his customers’ background information, so he was finally caught and arrested.