A senior policeman has filed a legal complaint against a couple he hired to mass-produce police uniforms, claiming they tried to cheat him.
Pol Maj Wutthiphong Tangmahakitsiri, a police inspector with the Welfare Division at the Royal Thai Police, lodged the complaint with the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) against Maj Thongthana Makchan, a military officer with the 9th Infantry Division in Kanchanaburi (Surasee military camp), and his wife, Raphakan.
The major said he runs a uniform supply business which received orders to produce a total of 5,000 police uniforms from various units.
He hired the couple to tailor the uniforms. However, when he received the first batch of 400 in January, he found many were of substandard quality. Others were larger or smaller than what had been ordered.
Pol Maj Wutthiphong tried calling the couple but was unable to contact them.
"They hung up on me," Pol Maj Wutthiphong said.
The couple also run a clothes shop in the military compound.
Pol Maj Wutthiphong said he opened his business last year to cash in on the heavy demand for uniforms after the Royal Thai Police office issued an order requiring officers nationwide to wear new uniforms with the same shade of khaki.
He said the couple offered to do the job at a low price of 1,500 baht apiece. Other shops charged 2,000 baht per uniform.
The couple also told him they had about 200 staff who knew how to tailor-make police uniforms.
Pol Maj Wutthiphong said he agreed to hire the couple to make 5,000 uniforms for 5 million baht.
When he confronted the couple they shrugged off responsibility and blamed him for giving them the wrong body sizes, the police inspector said.
They also allegedly missed the deadline to deliver the rest of the uniforms in February, citing a power blackout and staff shortage.
The policeman said he was forced to refund customers out of his own pocket.
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