National—
On November 28th, 2023, Thai central investigation officers held a press conference on raiding operations to crack down on illegal firearms dealers via online platforms in 21 locations across Thailand, one of them connected to the Siam Paragon shooting incident.
During the operation, the central investigation officers tracked down illegal firearms dealers in 21 locations in 12 provinces and captured 8 suspects with 12 units of various types of firearms.
One of the suspects, identified only as Mr. Apichet, 42, was reportedly connected to the shooting incident at Siam Paragon on October 3rd, as he reportedly sold ammunition to the 14-year-old teen male suspect via an online platform, said central investigation police.
Furthermore, there were 8 suspects involved in fraud by defrauding consumers in the sale of firearms via online platforms. According to a report by the central investigation police, the suspects reportedly confessed their wrongdoings that they created accounts on Facebook and X (Previously Twitter) to pretend to illegally sell firearms and instead pocketed the money after scamming potential customers.
As a result, more than 180 individuals were believed to have been conned into buying non-existent illegal firearms with a total value of more than 650,000 baht.
A police operation also was held to block URLs relating to selling illegal firearms on online platforms such as Facebook and X. Within November 2023, it was reported that 146 URLs were shut down.
The Thai police pledged to continue to take serious action regarding illegal firearms dealers via online platforms to prevent future crimes.
