Saudi Envoy Helps Expose a Thai Crime Group: The Police http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E5DA1E3BF93AA2575AC0A962958260 Published: September 19, 1994
The top Saudi Arabian diplomat in Thailand, Mohammed Said Khoja, reached across his desk to a zippered black bag, opened it and carefully removed his gun. The chrome-plated .38-caliber Smith & Wesson is always at his side.
Does he need protection from international terrorists? No, Mr. Khoja explained, cradling the pistol in one hand. He needs protection from the national police of Thailand, a remarkable assertion that few people in Thailand would dispute.
"The police here are bigger than the Government itself," the 60-year-old diplomat whispered. "I am a Muslim, and I stay because I feel I am fighting the devils."
After four years of digging and prodding, Mr. Khoja is the man largely responsible for unearthing the biggest scandal in the history of the Thai national police, a saga that begins with the theft of more than $20 million worth of jewels from a Saudi prince and ends with a trail of blood in the streets of Bangkok.
At least 18 police officers have been implicated in the gems case, including two police generals who were dismissed this month. Several killings have been linked to the theft.
The newest victims are the wife and 14-year-old son of the Government's principal witness, who were found dead last month, bloodied and beaten, in their Mercedes outside Bangkok. The witness, a Bangkok jeweler, is in hiding.
Mr. Khoja, whose tenacity appears to have finally forced the Thai Government to act, said he was convinced that Thai police commanders were also behind the killing of three Saudi diplomats here in 1990. They were shot, he said, after learning the names of the gem thieves.
To protest Bangkok's long inaction in the gems case, Saudi Arabia has cut off work permits to more than 250,000 Thai guest workers, depriving the economy here of billions of dollars a year. About 20,000 Thai workers remain in Saudi Arabia.
Yet whatever the damage to the economy and to Thailand's reputation, Mr. Khoja has become a hero to many Thais who admire his willingness to risk his own safety to expose what is widely understood to be the largest criminal organization in Thailand: the Royal Thai Police.
The saga of the Saudi gems began in 1989 in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, in the palace of Prince Faisal, son of King Fahd. The palace employed a Thai house servant, Kriangkrai Taechamong, whose job included cleaning the room where the Prince and his family stored their jewels.
When the Prince took a vacation abroad, the servant disabled the electronic alarm and stole nearly 200 pounds of gems and jewelry. Mr. Kraingkrai returned to Thailand and was quickly seized by the Thai police, who had been alerted by the Saudis. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
A box filled with jewels was initially returned to the Saudis. But the Prince and his family soon determined that nearly 80 percent of the jewels had disappeared. Some had been replaced by crude fakes.
Mr. Khoja -- whose title is charge d'affaires, not ambassador, because Saudi Arabia downgraded relations with Thailand -- was sent here in 1990. A 35-year veteran of the Saudi diplomatic corps, he volunteered for the job.
"Here is the reason," he said, dropping onto his desk a photo of bloodied corpse of Fahd al-Bahli, one of the three diplomats killed in 1990.
"He was one of my students in the diplomatic institute. He had three young sons. They are now orphans." Mr. Khoja said he would remain here until the perpetrators are put behind bars
"or at least until their names and their lives are ruined." 
