Police told to keep close watch on Premchai’s overseas trip

Italian-Thai Development Plc boss Premchai Karnasuta has notified police that he will be leaving for an overseas trip on Friday (March 9) although police summon him to acknowledge three more charges on March 14.

The deputy national police chief, Pol Gen Srivara Rangsibrahmanakul, said Thursday that the police in charge of the suppression of natural resources and environment violations planned to summon Mr Premchai and his wife to acknowledge charges related to their illegal possession of African ivory tusks on March 14.

However, he said he learned that Mr Premchai would leave on Friday for an overseas trip to an unspecified country and for an unspecified period of time.

He insisted that Mr Premchai could make overseas trip because he was not banned by the court from leaving the country, adding that the ITD boss had already notified officials concerned about his overseas trip, but he did not specify where he would go and for how long.

The deputy police chief further said that he had ordered his men to find out more information about Premchai’s overseas trip because the ITD boss would be required to acknowledge the charges against him on March 14.

Pol Gen Srivara was at Provincial Police Region 7 in Nakhon Pathom to discuss the illegal hunting case with police handling the case.

Natural resource and environment police, meanwhile, disclosed that in 2015 Premchai’s representative asked to register four ivory tusks claimed to be inherited from his family, but it was discovered the ivory tusks were not from domesticated elephants, but from African elephants which could not be legally rergistered.