Thailand’s Land Transport Department (LTD) has insisted that its officials, who have access to the car registration database,were not involved in the altering of information to apply for new licenses for illegal cars, but a Thai PBS investigative team has discovered that one of the two suspected hackers is very close to one of the officials and can use the official’s computer in his office.

A regular visitor to the LTD told Thai PBS that one of the two suspected hackers, “Sathien”, was often seen at the desk of an assistant car inspector and could get in and out of the inspector’s office at will, adding that Sathien’s motorcycle license plate number 9999 is expensive.

He said he believes the two suspected hackers could not have hacked into the department’s registration database without the assistance of someone who has access to the system. He also claimed that the actual number of cars which were issued with new licenses through fraudulent means could be higher than the 65 claimed by the police and the LTD.

LTD director-general Chirut Wisalchit has said that Sathien, a car registration freelancer, has been working at the department, offering car registration services at a price, for about 20 years and is, therefore, acquainted with numerous people at the department and may have obtained the username and password of an official who has access to the database.

Legitimate car licenses are in high demand by gangs specialising in the smuggling of luxury cars from abroad because, without the licenses, the smuggled cars cannot be sold for high prices. Hence, a valid car license can fetch up to a million baht.

Sathien and the other suspected hackers have been released on 25,000 baht bail each, after their arrest by the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau.