Ex-Official Charged in 44-Million-Baht Gym Equipment Scam
Former Pathum Thani PAO chairman Charn Puangpech has been charged with corruption over a 44-million-baht gym equipment scam involving inflated prices and bypassed procurement procedures across two fiscal years.
On August 11, 2025, Surpong Inthrawat, secretary-general of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), announced that the NACC board had found grounds to charge Charn Puangpech, former chairman of the Pathum Thani Provincial Administrative Organization, for corruption involving overpriced gym equipment procurement during fiscal years 2555-2556. The Pathum Thani PAO suffered damages totaling 44,574,012 baht.
During the investigation, it was revealed that in fiscal year 2555, Charn directed council members to submit projects to address public hardship within a 5-million-baht limit per person. Ten council members submitted eight projects totaling 10.5 million baht. Charn then ordered these projects included in the three-year development plan and the annual budget without proper price documentation as required by Interior Ministry regulations.
The engineering department director delegated price estimation to a civil engineer, Pratheuang Kanthsamas, who improperly based prices on previous-year equipment costs of approximately 500,000 baht per unit without accounting for different specifications. No price verification committee was established as mandated by procurement regulations. Based on these inflated estimates, Charn approved three gym equipment contracts worth 28,038,000 baht.
For fiscal year 2556, the same pattern repeated when 13 council members proposed 13 projects worth 34.5 million baht, which Charn again included in the budget and development plan without proper price verification procedures, leading to further overpricing of gym equipment purchases.
