A hotel on Ngamwongwan Road looked ordinary from the street. Inside, Thai police say, it operated as a members-only vice resort for Chinese customers, complete with a casino, drug parties and sex services, and Thais were turned away at the door.
More than 100 officers from the Central Investigation Bureau stormed the hotel in Bang Khen subdistrict, Mueang district, Nonthaburi, today, July 26, under an operation codenamed Dragon Nest.
CIB commissioner Police Lieutenant General Natthasak Chaovanasai ordered the raid, backed by a Criminal Court search warrant, after investigators concluded the property had been converted into a base for Chinese grey capital gangs.
The tip came from neighbours. Locals reported Chinese visitors streaming in and out at all hours while Thai walk-ins were refused, always with the same excuse that rooms were full.
Key cards, locked stairwells and live-in staff
Undercover work revealed a hotel built for secrecy. Floors 2 to 6 held guest rooms. Floors 7 and 8 had been converted into drug party rooms and a casino floor.
Security guards downstairs used radios to warn staff of any risk. The lift only worked to floor 6 with a key card. Reaching the top floors meant climbing a stairwell locked with a physical key. Nearly all staff were Chinese nationals who ate and slept inside the building, a measure police believe was designed to stop any word leaking out.
The operation ran door to door. Vans collected Chinese customers directly from the airport and delivered them to the hotel for a full package: accommodation, baccarat, ketamine and so-called happy water, plus arranged sex services.
The venue had history. Immigration police raided the same property in 2023 and arrested 49 Chinese and Thai gamblers. The operators pretended to close for renovation, then quietly reopened with tighter security than before.
Four arrests, 200 items seized
Officers found more than 40 people living in the building, including Chinese, Myanmar and Tai Yai nationals. Police arrested four people: a 33 year old Chinese man identified as Liu, caught with drugs, and three Myanmar nationals who had entered the country illegally.
The seizure list ran past 200 items, including ketamine, happy water, casino chips, baccarat tables, dice, 110,000 baht in cash and the hotel’s CCTV system.
The car park told its own story. Most vehicles belonged to Chinese nationals, and police found ownership links pointing to nominee arrangements, the same structure at the centre of the government’s nationwide crackdown on foreign-controlled businesses hiding behind Thai names.
Under questioning, Liu claimed he was merely a foreman who delivered drugs on orders, and denied owning the drugs and cash found in a safe. Police handed him and the other suspects to Rattanathibet Police Station and are widening the investigation to identify everyone behind the operation.
The raid adds another front to Thailand’s escalating war on grey capital networks, which has already produced mass raids in Chiang Mai and identified thousands of suspected nominee businesses in tourist provinces across the country. This nest sat not on a resort island but in a Bangkok suburb, hiding in plain sight behind a hotel sign and a permanently full guest book.
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