BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai Buddhist monk shot dead this week had amassed a $5 million fortune in 12 bank accounts from years of extortion and was on a government blacklist of influential "mafia" figures, police said on Friday.
Investigators said the monk, Phra Kru Nanthapiwat, murdered execution-style by an unidentified assailant on Tuesday, had been earning as much as one million baht ($24,030) a week by embezzling temple funds and running illegal motorcycle taxi gangs.
The monk, who had been at the temple on the outskirts of Bangkok for 36 years, also promoted himself as a spiritual medium who could dispel bad luck in exchange for money, police said.
"It was quite unexpected," one of the investigators in the case, Police Colonel Kamrob Panyakaew, told Reuters, referring to the findings of an investigation.
"At first we were not aware of the full extent of his involvement in the motorcycle gangs and exactly where his money came from, but we knew he was taking from the temple."
Thai Buddhist monks live on food donations from the local community and are supposed to only use money for the upkeep of temples.
Kamrob said the monk was on a Thai government blacklist of "dark influences," targets of a crackdown on the mafia launched at the beginning of May.
The government drew up a similar blacklist for drug traffickers and dealers when it launched a 90-day anti-drugs crackdown in February that claimed the lives of about 1,600 people.
Statements by members of the local community to police said the monk had frequently violated monastery rules, including luring female followers to his living quarters.
Investigators said the monk, Phra Kru Nanthapiwat, murdered execution-style by an unidentified assailant on Tuesday, had been earning as much as one million baht ($24,030) a week by embezzling temple funds and running illegal motorcycle taxi gangs.
The monk, who had been at the temple on the outskirts of Bangkok for 36 years, also promoted himself as a spiritual medium who could dispel bad luck in exchange for money, police said.
"It was quite unexpected," one of the investigators in the case, Police Colonel Kamrob Panyakaew, told Reuters, referring to the findings of an investigation.
"At first we were not aware of the full extent of his involvement in the motorcycle gangs and exactly where his money came from, but we knew he was taking from the temple."
Thai Buddhist monks live on food donations from the local community and are supposed to only use money for the upkeep of temples.
Kamrob said the monk was on a Thai government blacklist of "dark influences," targets of a crackdown on the mafia launched at the beginning of May.
The government drew up a similar blacklist for drug traffickers and dealers when it launched a 90-day anti-drugs crackdown in February that claimed the lives of about 1,600 people.
Statements by members of the local community to police said the monk had frequently violated monastery rules, including luring female followers to his living quarters.
