Before his posting to Phuket airport, Pol Col Padthongtew also spent just 10 months as the head of an immigration administration unit in Bangkok.
Due to its proximity to Bangkok, Nonthaburi is considered a suburb of the capital and is part of the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, or ‘Greater Bangkok’.
Pol Col Padthongtew’s promotion was announced in an order signed by Pol Lt Gen Phanumas Bunyalak, Commander of the Immigration Bureau, on Feb 28. The order came into effect on Monday (Mar 3).
The new chief of Phuket Airport Immigration is Pol Col Russarin Teerapattanakul, who has arrived from her previous post as Deputy Director of the Immigration Bureau’s Immigration Division 4 ‒ a transfer highlighting the significance attributed to leading Phuket Airport Immigration.
Her new official title is Director of the Phuket Immigration Checkpoint, Immigration Bureau Division 2
Phuket Airport Immigration in a post online yesterday announced her arrival, with glowing remarks about Pol Col Russarin being the first female officer to head the Phuket Airport Immigration unit.
Phuket Airport Immigration has so far posted no notices confirming the promotion of Pol Col Col Padthongtew to Nonthaburi.
Pol Col Padthongtew took up the post of Phuket Airport Immigration chief in the reshuffle of Nov 29, 2023 ‒ again under dubious circumstances as to the speed of his climbing the ranks.
Although he officially spent 15 months as chief of the Immigration division stationed at Phuket International Airport, Pol Col Padthongtew was not even reported as Phuket Airport Immigration chief even by Phuket Airport Immigration themselves since Oct 1 last year.
The last time Phuket Airport Immigration reported Pol Col Padthongtew as Phuket Airport Immigration chief was Sept 30 last year.
During Pol Col Padthongtew’s physical absence from Phuket, Pol Col Atisak Panya, Superintendent of Immigration Division 2, was repeatedly and consistently reported by Phuket Airport Immigration as ‘Acting Superintendent of the Phuket Airport Immigration Checkpoint’.
Oddly, the Immigration Bureau on Dec 24 last year still named Pol Col Padthongtew as Phuket Airport Immigration chief. That was in a brief report where he joined a meeting of Special Agent Caroline A. Marshall, Acting Legal Attaché from the FBI at the US Embassy in Thailand, with Pol Maj Gen Panthana Nuchanat, Deputy Commissioner of the Immigration Bureau.
Rangsiman Rome of the-then Move Forward Party (now the People’s Party) in 2023 questioned the promotion of Pol Col Padthongtew, then 41, to the highly coveted position in Phuket, as it came just 10 months after he was appointed as the chief of an administrative unit at the Immigration Bureau headquarters.
Pol Col Padthongtew is the son of an older brother of Khunying Potjaman na Pombejra, the ex-wife of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Khunying Potjaman’s father, Pol Gen Preawphan Damapong, was a former national police chief.
Thaksin began his career with the police before starting the businesses that would make him a billionaire and later entering politics.
Pol Col Padthongtew was born in Los Angeles, making him eligible for US citizenship, and was moved to Thailand at age 10.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Thammasat University and a master’s in public administration from the University of Southern California. He is married and has four children.
See also: report by Thai Rath, ‘Children of Connections doing well’