Samroeng ‘Kasem’ Buanak, a local Samui-resident who escaped arrest during the raid against Bandidos last months, today, Wednesday 2 August, turned himself in to the Department of Special Investigation in Bangkok.
Samroeng Buanak fled to Singapore on the morning of the arrest of the Danish Bandidos member Kim Lindegaard Nielsen on 18 July.
Today, he was questioned and later released on bail. He denied any involvement in the case but remains a suspect according to the police.
Peter Buch Rosenberg, the President of the Samui Chapter of Bandidos, is now the only person left on the list of people whom the DSI wanted to arrest.
“He is hiding in Denmark,” Colonel Piyawat Kingkate told a press conference after the arrest of Samroeng ‘Kasem’ Buanak.
“Our Danish colleagues tell us he keeps himself inside his house in Denmark. Last week he did not even dare to go to France for an international Bandidos meeting, because France and Thailand have a treaty by which French police could have apprehended him and handed him over to the Thai police for questioning.”
Thai police has so far not requested Danish police to arrest him in Denmark and transfer him to Thailand. This is a complicated diplomatic procedure and experts find it unlikely that the Thai government would go through with this at this point in the investigation.
Asked, if the DSI believes they have enough evidence that the foreigners involved in the land scam knew of the illegal land classification,” Col. Piyawat said they believed this was the case.
Samroeng ‘Kasem’ Buanak said to ScandAsia after his release on bail, that he was quite sure the foreigners were not involved.
“The land titles are not fake, they are genuine and come from the Samui land office. How can the foreigners suspect anything to be wrong, when the papers are all verified by the land office?” he asked.
Samroeng ‘Kasem’ Buanak said there would for sure be culprits working inside the land office on Samui, who would be arrested and sentenced, if the papers turned out to be issued illegally.