So what about Chuwit Kamolvisit? He is a sex industry magnate who at the height of his influence decided to resolve a property dispute by hiring the army to bulldoze dozens of shops and bars in Sukhumvit Square at 4 A.M. one Sunday in January as the police watched. The outcry was so loud — the businesses had leases, although Mr. Chuwit owned the land on which they stood — that the police investigated the army, which promptly blamed the police, who then investigated themselves and found themselves blameless. Mr. Chuwit was arrested and spent May in jail.
Everyone understood that karma was playing out here: Mr. Chuwit was being punished for his hubris. But who would punish the police for theirs? Well, Chuwit Kamolvisit would. For quite some time now, in revenge for his arrest, he has been entertaining Thailand with detailed accounts of the millions of baht per year he has been paying the police to turn a blind eye to his illegal massage parlors. He appears on TV and gives the initials of senior policemen whom he has been bribing monthly for a decade, then waits while people like Somchai put their money on whom they think he’s fingering. In the meantime, 17 prominent police officials have been suspended.
Mr. Chuwit is a slim, charismatic fellow with darting eyes and a pencil mustache. Foreigners like me see a gifted clown, a self-promoter of near genius, but Somchai knows better. For him, Mr. Chuwit is a man on his last dance in death’s disco. They’ll whack him for sure, whatever the astrologer says. Or will they?

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