The System Nobody Tells You About Before You Get On The Plane
There is a system in Thailand that nobody tells you about before you get on the plane. A system that decides who protects you, who polices the streets you walk on, who investigates the crimes committed against you. And that system does not work the way you think it does. It does not work the way any police force in any country you have ever lived in works. Because in Thailand, the police do not serve the public. The police serve whoever paid the most to be there.
This is how it works. And by the end of this article, you will never look at a Thai police officer the same way again.
I decided to write this as a follow-on from yesterday’s deep dive on foreigners being kidnapped by Thai police only a few weeks ago. That story was shocking on its own. Six serving officers tying tourists up in a forest for ten thousand dollars a head. But after writing that piece I kept asking myself the same question. How does a country produce a police force that does this. Not one rogue officer. Six of them. Working together. Confident enough that they thought they could pull it off. So I went looking for the answer. I went looking for how the Thai police actually work from the top down, how officers get hired, how they get promoted, how they get their postings, how they get rich. And what I found was so much worse than I expected that I had to make this whole separate article about it.
What Is Tua Chang? The Elephant Ticket System Explained
In Thailand, police promotions are not based on merit. They are based on money, connections, and a system so openly corrupt that it has its own nickname. They call it “tua chang.” The elephant ticket.
An elephant ticket is a reference, written or verbal, from someone powerful enough to guarantee your promotion. It can come from a senior officer, a politician, a businessman, or anyone with enough influence over the Police Commission. If you have the right ticket, you skip the queue. You bypass the criteria. You get the post. If you don’t have the right ticket, it doesn’t matter how good you are. You stay where you are.
And if you want the ticket but don’t have the connections, you buy it.
How Much Does A Thai Police Promotion Cost?
According to evidence submitted to Thailand’s National Police Chief in 2025, promotions from deputy superintendent to superintendent cost between 5 and 7 million baht. That is 100,000 to 150,000 pounds. For a single promotion. In a police force where the starting salary for a low-ranking officer is around 15,000 baht a month, about 350 pounds.
Think about that. An officer earning 350 pounds a month is expected to find 150,000 pounds to buy a promotion. Where does that money come from? It comes from you.
What Are Golden Stations In Thailand?
Not all police stations are equal. In Thailand, certain posts are known as “golden stations,” stations near casinos, entertainment venues, red-light districts, and tourist areas. These are the most valuable assignments because they generate the most illegal income. Protection money from bars. Bribes from businesses. Extortion at checkpoints. Kickbacks from gambling operations.
Officers compete, and pay, to be posted to golden stations. The more lucrative the station, the higher the price. Once there, the officer recoups the investment by extracting money from the people and businesses in the area. Then they use that money to buy the next promotion. And the cycle continues.
The whole system runs on extraction. Low salaries force officers to seek illegal income. Illegal income funds the purchase of promotions. Promotions give access to more lucrative posts. More lucrative posts generate more illegal income. It is a machine, and it has been running for decades.
A 2020 survey by Transparency International found that almost half of all respondents in Thailand had paid a bribe to police in the previous year. Half the country. For a force that is supposed to protect them.
Why Foreigners Are The Thai Police’s Favourite Target
And if you are a foreigner, you are not outside this system. You are the system’s favourite target.
In Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya, and Chiang Mai, police set up checkpoints in tourist areas and nightlife districts. Officially, these are for public safety. In practice, many of them are shakedowns. Foreigners are stopped. Passports are demanded. Urine tests are administered on the side of the road, sometimes regardless of whether there is any suspicion of drug use. If the test is positive, or if the officer says it is positive, money is demanded. If you don’t have your passport, money is demanded. If you have an e-cigarette, which is technically illegal in Thailand, money is demanded.
A Taiwanese actress was stopped at a Bangkok checkpoint in January 2023 and allegedly extorted for 27,000 baht for having a vaporiser in her bag. She posted the experience on Instagram. Six officers were arrested and denied bail. They faced charges carrying up to life imprisonment.
But for every case that makes the news, there are hundreds that don’t. A former Lonely Planet author documented case after case of tourists being shaken down. “Random police searches of foreigners in Bangkok is getting bad,” he wrote. “Many reports of innocent tourists forced to pay bribes.” Tourists described being frisked, searched, humiliated, and forced to take urine tests on the pavement. One officer, when asked about the extortion, told Al Jazeera: “As far as I know, police at this station don’t take bribes from people, but I don’t know about the others.”
That is the police force that is supposed to protect you when you visit Thailand. Officers who earn a dollar an hour, who bought their position with borrowed money, who need to extract enough cash from tourists and businesses to fund their next promotion. And you are standing at their checkpoint at two in the morning with no idea how any of this works.
Jo Ferrari: The Police Colonel Who Owned A Lamborghini Collection
And then there is what happens when the system produces someone truly dangerous.
Colonel Thitisan Utthanaphon was the superintendent of the Muang district police station in Nakhon Sawan province. His nickname was Jo Ferrari. Not because he investigated car crimes. Because he owned a collection of over 30 luxury cars, including a Ferrari, a Lamborghini Aventador limited edition, and several Porsches. He was reportedly the first person in Thailand to own the Lamborghini Aventador LP 720-4 50th Anniversary special. Only a hundred were ever made. It retails for over half a million dollars.
His police salary was 1,300 dollars a month.
Nobody asked where the money came from. Nobody questioned how a 41-year-old police colonel on a public servant’s salary had amassed a collection worth millions. Because in the Thai police, that is not a question anyone wants to answer. The system that put him there is the same system that put every other officer in every other golden station across the country. He just took it further than most.
The Plastic Bag Murder In A Thai Police Station
On August 5th 2021, Jo Ferrari and six other officers detained a 24-year-old drug suspect named Jirapong Thanapat at the Nakhon Sawan police station. They handcuffed him. They put plastic bags over his head. They suffocated him, repeatedly, while demanding he pay a 2 million baht bribe for his release. Jirapong collapsed. He stopped breathing. He died.
The officers thought they had erased the CCTV footage. They hadn’t. A whistleblower inside the station leaked the video to a lawyers’ group, which circulated it on social media. Thailand saw, in full colour, what happens inside a police station run by a man who bought his way to the top.
The national police chief apologised. “Our house is dirty and it’s time to clean up,” a police spokesman said. Jo Ferrari and the six officers were arrested. A raid on his luxury villa in Bangkok confirmed the car collection. All six were sentenced to life imprisonment. Jo Ferrari himself hanged himself in prison in March 2025.
But here is what a serving Bangkok police officer told reporters, speaking anonymously: “This is not the first death. It’s just the first death in custody caught on camera.”
That is what the system produces at station level. An officer who bought his way in, extracted his way up, and killed when the extraction failed. But Jo Ferrari was a colonel. He was not at the top of the machine. He was in the middle. And what happens at the top is worse. Not because it is more violent. Because it is invisible.
How A Thai National Police Chief Became A Multi-Millionaire
General Somyot Poompunmuang became Thailand’s national police chief in 2014. His declared assets exceeded 11.5 million dollars. On a police salary. He was appointed by the military junta after the coup. He was supposed to clean up the force. “Reform” was the word used. It is always the word used.
After his retirement, Somyot became president of the Football Association of Thailand. He lived well. He was respected. He was connected.
And then it emerged that he had been involved in one of the most notorious criminal cover-ups in Thai history.
The Red Bull Heir, The Dead Police Officer, And The Police Chief Who Covered It Up
In 2012, the grandson of the co-founder of Red Bull, Vorayuth “Boss” Yoovidhya, drove a Ferrari at over a hundred miles an hour through Bangkok, struck a police officer on a motorcycle, dragged his body more than a hundred metres down the road, and fled to his family’s mansion. The officer, Wichian Klanprasert, died at the scene. He was 47 years old.
Vorayuth admitted to driving the car. Cocaine and alcohol were found in his blood. He was released on bail of 16,000 dollars, for a family worth 26 billion, and then missed every single court date for five years while flying around the world on private Red Bull jets, attending Formula One races, and snowboarding in Japan. An arrest warrant was issued in 2017. He had already fled the country three days earlier.
In July 2020, the Attorney General dropped all charges. The public erupted. The Prime Minister ordered a review. The review found the entire investigation had been “compromised.”
And the man at the centre of that compromise was General Somyot Poompunmuang. Thailand’s former national police chief. The man appointed to reform the force. He was indicted in 2024 for conspiring to help Vorayuth escape justice. Two former prosecutors were convicted in April 2025 for altering witness statements and reducing the recorded speed of the Ferrari. The investigation had been gutted from the inside, by the people running it.
The same police force that suffocated a 24-year-old drug suspect with a plastic bag to extort two million baht protected a billionaire who killed a police officer and helped him flee the country. One man died because he couldn’t pay. The other man lived because he could. And the police chief who oversaw both eras retired rich, respected, and free, until the system finally, reluctantly, came for him.
The Thai Police Force In Plain Numbers
This is the police force that operates in Thailand. This is who stands at the checkpoint when you get off the plane. This is who investigates when something happens to you. This is who decides whether your case matters, whether your complaint is heard, whether justice is served or quietly buried.
Officers buy their positions. They recoup the cost through bribes and extortion. They serve the powerful and extract from the weak. Promotions go to whoever has the right ticket, the right patron, the right price. Golden stations are fought over like territory. Torture happens behind closed doors and only surfaces when someone leaks the footage. And when the biggest case in the country, a billionaire killing a police officer, needed to disappear, it was the police chief himself who allegedly made it happen.
Almost fifty percent of Thai citizens have paid a bribe to police. Foreigners are targeted at checkpoints in tourist districts. Drug suspects are suffocated for cash. Since 2003, a government “war on drugs” killed at least 2,819 suspected traffickers, many of them extrajudicial killings, and virtually none of the officers responsible were ever brought to justice. In the two years after an anti-torture law was passed in 2023, there were 627 prisoner deaths and 52 deaths in police custody. Nearly 300 complaints of torture were filed in southern Thailand alone. One case reached court. Whistleblowers are shot dead outside their homes. A former senior investigator who accused colleagues of extortion was murdered in broad daylight. And the methods of abuse have become, in the words of the foundation tracking them, “more subtle to evade legal detection.”
This Is Not A Broken System. It Works Exactly As Designed.
This is not a broken system. A broken system is one that fails despite good intentions. This is a system that works exactly as designed. It produces rich police chiefs, protected billionaires, extorted tourists, and dead suspects. And the only thing that has ever threatened it is a leaked video from a camera that was supposed to have been erased.
The officer who leaked that footage was never publicly identified. Because in Thailand, the people who expose the system are the ones who disappear. And the people who run the system are the ones who get promoted.
That is how you become chief of police in Thailand. You pay. You protect. You extract. And you never, ever, let anyone film it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is tua chang or the elephant ticket in the Thai police?
Tua chang, which translates as “elephant ticket,” is the Thai police promotion system in which a senior officer, politician, businessman, or person with influence over the Police Commission provides a written or verbal reference that guarantees an officer’s promotion. The system is so openly known that it has its own established nickname. Without a tua chang, merit does not matter. With one, the officer skips the queue and gets the post.
How much does it cost to become a senior officer in the Thai police?
According to evidence submitted to Thailand’s National Police Chief in 2025, promotions from deputy superintendent to superintendent cost between 5 and 7 million baht, approximately 100,000 to 150,000 pounds sterling. The starting salary for a low-ranking officer is around 15,000 baht per month, about 350 pounds. The promotion cost is therefore equivalent to roughly thirty years of starting salary, which is why the system requires officers to recoup the cost through illegal income once they reach more lucrative posts.
What are golden stations in the Thai police?
Golden stations are Thai police posts located near casinos, entertainment venues, red-light districts, and tourist areas. They are the most valuable assignments because they generate the most illegal income through protection money from bars, bribes from businesses, extortion at checkpoints, and kickbacks from gambling operations. Officers pay to be posted to golden stations and recoup the investment by extracting from the local population, which they then use to buy the next promotion.
Are foreigners targeted at Thai police checkpoints?
Yes. Foreigners are targeted at police checkpoints in tourist and nightlife areas of Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya, and Chiang Mai. Passports are demanded, urine tests are administered on the pavement, and money is demanded for any pretext including positive test results, missing passports, or possession of vaporisers which are technically illegal in Thailand. The 2023 case of a Taiwanese actress allegedly extorted for 27,000 baht over a vaporiser is one of many. Six officers in that case were arrested and denied bail.
Who was Jo Ferrari and what happened at his police station?
Colonel Thitisan Utthanaphon, known as Jo Ferrari, was the superintendent of the Muang district police station in Nakhon Sawan province. He owned over 30 luxury cars including a Ferrari, a Lamborghini Aventador limited edition, and several Porsches, on a police salary of 1,300 dollars a month. In August 2021 he and six other officers suffocated a 24-year-old drug suspect, Jirapong Thanapat, with plastic bags while demanding a 2 million baht bribe. The man died. The officers had tried to erase the CCTV footage but a whistleblower leaked it. All seven received life imprisonment. Jo Ferrari hanged himself in prison in March 2025.
What was the Red Bull heir case and how did the police chief cover it up?
In 2012, Vorayuth “Boss” Yoovidhya, grandson of the Red Bull co-founder, drove a Ferrari at over 100 mph through Bangkok, struck and killed police officer Wichian Klanprasert, and fled. Cocaine and alcohol were found in his blood. He missed every court date for five years, fled the country before the 2017 arrest warrant, and had all charges dropped by the Attorney General in July 2020. A subsequent review found the investigation had been “compromised.” Former national police chief General Somyot Poompunmuang was indicted in 2024 for conspiring to help Vorayuth escape justice. Two former prosecutors were convicted in April 2025 for altering witness statements.
Is the Thai police system broken or working as designed?
It is working exactly as designed. A broken system fails despite good intentions. The Thai police system reliably produces rich police chiefs, protected billionaires, extorted tourists, and dead suspects. The 2020 Transparency International survey found nearly half of Thai citizens had paid a bribe to police in the previous year. Since 2003, at least 2,819 suspected drug traffickers were killed in extrajudicial actions with virtually no officer accountability. In the two years after the 2023 anti-torture law, 627 prisoners died and 52 died in police custody. The system runs the way it does because that is how it is set up to run.
Sources
- Bangkok Post — Evidence submitted to Thailand’s National Police Chief in 2025 documenting the “tua chang” elephant-ticket system, promotions from deputy superintendent to superintendent costing between 5 and 7 million baht, the structural corruption of the promotion pipeline
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2879241/police-promotion-bribery-tua-chang-system - Khaosod English — Investigation into “elephant ticket” patronage system, references and connections from senior officers, politicians, and businessmen guaranteeing police promotions through the Police Commission, May 2025 report
https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/2025/05/14/elephant-ticket-thai-police-promotions-tua-chang/ - Thai PBS World — Royal Thai Police starting salaries for low-ranking officers around 15,000 baht per month, base pay structure for Police Lance Corporal and equivalent positions, the gap between official salaries and the actual costs of advancement in the force
https://www.thaipbsworld.com/royal-thai-police-salary-structure-starting-officers/ - Transparency International — Global Corruption Barometer Asia 2020 found 47 percent of respondents in Thailand reported paying a bribe to a public official in the previous year, with police listed among the most frequently bribed institutions
https://www.transparency.org/en/gcb/asia/asia-2020 - Reuters — “Golden stations” in Thailand, posts near casinos, entertainment venues, red-light districts, and tourist areas, the structural value of these assignments for officers seeking to recoup the cost of their promotions through extracted income
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thai-police-golden-stations-corruption - Bangkok Post — January 2023 Taiwanese actress Charlene An stopped at a Thong Lor checkpoint and allegedly extorted for 27,000 baht over a vape, Instagram disclosure triggering arrest of six police officers denied bail and facing charges carrying potential life imprisonment
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2491651/taiwanese-actress-thong-lor-checkpoint-extortion - Al Jazeera — Investigation of tourist extortion by Thai police, anonymous quotes from serving Bangkok officers including the line “as far as I know, police at this station don’t take bribes from people, but I don’t know about the others,” documentation of urine tests administered on pavements regardless of suspicion
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/thai-police-tourist-extortion-checkpoints - The Guardian — Colonel Thitisan Utthanaphon, known as “Jo Ferrari,” superintendent of Muang district police station in Nakhon Sawan province, collection of over 30 luxury cars including a Ferrari, a Lamborghini Aventador LP 720-4 50th Anniversary special, and several Porsches, monthly police salary of approximately 1,300 dollars
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/26/thai-police-colonel-jo-ferrari-luxury-cars-suspect-death - BBC News — August 5, 2021 death in custody of 24-year-old drug suspect Jirapong Thanapat at Nakhon Sawan police station, suffocation with plastic bags during attempted extortion of 2 million baht bribe, leaked CCTV footage circulated by lawyers’ group, national police chief public apology
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58341293 - Reuters — Jo Ferrari and six officers arrested, all six sentenced to life imprisonment for the suffocation death of Jirapong Thanapat, raid on Bangkok luxury villa confirming the car collection, “our house is dirty and it’s time to clean up” police spokesman statement
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thai-police-colonel-life-sentence-suspect-death - Bangkok Post — Jo Ferrari hanged himself in prison in March 2025, anonymous Bangkok police officer quote that “this is not the first death, it’s just the first death in custody caught on camera”
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2974823/jo-ferrari-prison-death - Reuters — General Somyot Poompunmuang appointed Thailand’s national police chief in 2014 by the military junta after the coup, declared assets exceeding 11.5 million dollars, presidency of the Football Association of Thailand following retirement
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/somyot-poompunmuang-thai-police-chief-assets - The Guardian — 2012 Bangkok hit-and-run case, Vorayuth “Boss” Yoovidhya, grandson of the co-founder of Red Bull, Ferrari driven at over 100 miles per hour, Sergeant Major Wichian Klanprasert killed, body dragged more than 100 metres, cocaine and alcohol in blood, 16,000 dollar bail for a family worth 26 billion
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/27/red-bull-heir-vorayuth-yoovidhya-arrest-warrant-thailand - BBC News — Vorayuth fled Thailand on private Red Bull jets three days before the 2017 arrest warrant was issued, missed every court date for five years, attended Formula One races and went snowboarding in Japan during the fugitive period
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40450691 - Reuters — July 2020 Attorney General drops all charges against Vorayuth, public outrage and Prime Minister-ordered review finding the entire investigation had been “compromised,” the cover-up at the highest levels of the Thai justice system
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thailand-red-bull-charges-dropped-review - Thai PBS World — General Somyot Poompunmuang indicted in 2024 for conspiring to help Vorayuth escape justice, two former prosecutors convicted in April 2025 for altering witness statements and reducing the recorded speed of the Ferrari
https://www.thaipbsworld.com/somyot-indicted-red-bull-case-prosecutors-convicted/ - Human Rights Watch — Thailand “war on drugs” since 2003 killed at least 2,819 suspected traffickers, many extrajudicial killings, virtually none of the officers responsible brought to justice, documentation of the systemic impunity that protects officers from prosecution
https://www.hrw.org/news/thailand-war-on-drugs-extrajudicial-killings-impunity - Cross Cultural Foundation Thailand — Two years after Thailand’s anti-torture law was passed in 2023, 627 prisoner deaths and 52 deaths in police custody documented, nearly 300 complaints of torture filed in southern Thailand alone, only one case reaching court, and abuse methods becoming “more subtle to evade legal detection”
https://crcfthailand.org/anti-torture-law-two-years-prisoner-deaths-police-custody - Bangkok Post — Whistleblower killings in Thailand, former senior investigator murdered in broad daylight after accusing colleagues of extortion, the structural risks faced by anyone inside the Thai police willing to expose internal corruption
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/whistleblower-investigator-murder-police-corruption - Lonely Planet author archive — Documented case after case of tourists being shaken down at Bangkok police checkpoints, “random police searches of foreigners in Bangkok is getting bad, many reports of innocent tourists forced to pay bribes,” published reports on extortion, pavement frisks, and forced urine tests
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thailand/safety-bangkok-checkpoint-extortion-reports
