“Those who were in charge of buying land plots for this project must take responsibility for the billions of baht in damages caused to the state. They will face a civil suit,” said Maj-General Noppadol Somboonsap, director-general of the Special Investigation Department (SID).

Only 100 rai out of more than 1,900 rai of land for the project area was found to have legal ownership, the SID chief said. Noppadol, who is in charge of the Klong Dan corruption
investigation, said yesterday after inspecting the site in Samut Prakan that the fact was confirmed using global positioning system (GPS) equipment, together with information from local residents.

Noppadol was joined on yesterday’s inspection – via helicopter – by Maj-Gen Suthep Thammarat, the National Police Office vice-commander. On hand to show them around were senior staff of the project’s owner, NVPSKG.

Noppadol said the Land Department had set up a committee to revoke the illegal ownership of all 1,800 rai of land used for the project.

“Next week, we will go through further details of the legal action,”he said. The most obvious group facing the lawsuit is NVPSKG and the property company that sold the land to the project,” he said.