Deputy national police chief, Surachate "Big Joke" Hakparn, says he does not want revenge on several senior officers for their actions against him, despite his holding secret information that he says could spell their doom.
"I don't want to get revenge. I have plenty of information. If I expose it, everyone at the Royal Thai Police [RTP] is doomed.
"But I will not reveal it yet. I still want to protect the [police] force," he said during a television show on Channel 9 on Wednesday.
Pol Gen Surachate was speaking after a high-profile search of his rented house in Bangkok on Monday as part of a probe into online gambling websites. The search was based on financial transactions related to gambling websites uncovered earlier.
The raid on Pol Gen Surachate's rented house in Bangkok was part of an operation code-named "Big Cleaning Day," which targeted 30 properties in Bangkok and five provinces.
Several of the other houses belonged to police officers close to Surachate, and they are alleged to be involved in online gambling sites operating in Laos with about one billion baht in circulation.
Surachate said on Wednesday he instructed his lawyer to file a complaint with Southern Bangkok's Criminal Court, alleging contempt of court in the police application for an arrest warrant for eight of his subordinates.
He said investigators who sought the arrest warrant failed to identify their ranks. If investigators had done so, the court would not have approved the arrest warrant, but would have issued a summons instead, Surachate said.
However, on Wednesday he admitted the five houses actually belonged to a businessman based in Udon Thani. He rented the houses from him and let his subordinates stay in two of them.
