The eccentric billionaire, King of Thailand, has some issues on his gilded plate right now.
The German government has expressed concern that he is running his country illegally from a hotel in the Bavarian Alps, where he lived for much of the year in the company of a retinue of 20 women. Demonstrations at home demanding democratic reforms of the country and its power are intensifying.
And now his mistress is the target of a seemingly nude photo leak.
About 1,400 selfies, many of them sexually explicit, have reportedly been stolen from Sineenat ‘Koi’ Wongvajirapakdi, 35, and sent to anti-monarchy activists, in what appears to be a very modern twist on the age-old rituals of rivalry and intrigue.
Koi was released earlier this year after spending ten months in a correctional facility. She was accused of falling out with the queen but has now been declared ‘undefiled’ and has taken on her role as the official consort of 68-year-old King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
The alleged nude photos were sent earlier this year to prominent British commentator on Thai affairs Andrew MacGregor Marshall and to Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a Thai academic living in Japan who is being prosecuted in Thailand for his criticism of the monarchy.
Marshall told The Daily Beast that he only decided to disclose that he had received the photos because Chachavalpongpun had done so. Chachavalpongpun has released some of the non-explicit images.
Marshall told The Daily Beast that in August – around the time Koi was welcomed back to the royal family – he received a letter sent to an address where he no longer lives, containing an SD card. The letter, he believes, had a “fake return address” that corresponded to the German intelligence headquarters in Berlin.
“There were 1,400 photos from four different iPhones. Some of them were very intimate photos.
“I have decided not to publish them. They were clearly sent to me without her permission, but I also saw that this is a faction game.
“Earlier in August my home in Scotland was under surveillance and a threat was left on the doorstep, so it was quite a troubling time and the last thing I wanted was to get caught up in palace politics.”
When Chachavalpongpun released some of the photos and described the content of others, arguing that he did so to expose the inaccuracy of the image the Thai royal family is seeking on the projects, Marshall felt it appropriate to support and encourage him. say he did. she also received.
“From the timing of the whole case, it was clearly an attempt to sabotage her return to court,” said Marshall.
‘You get faction battles at every royal court. It’s an infamous part of palace life. If you are a monarch with a wife and queen and you appoint a mate, that is a recipe for brutal infighting. “
Marshall notes that this is not the first time that compromising photos of the Thai royals have appeared online. “There is a dazzling amount of naked Thai royal meat online,” he said.
The king divorced his third wife in 2014 after a video appeared in which they fed a birthday cake to his poodle, Fufu, wearing only a thong and courtiers crawling on the floor in front of them.
The existence of the photos will not be reported by the local mainstream media in Thailand due to strict bans, but news of it is seeping into the country through social media, particularly Facebook.
Thailand earlier this year tried to get Facebook to remove a group criticizing the monarchy that had more than a million members, but failed.
Marshall posted an account of the photos in Thai on his Facebook page.
Thailand is facing a deep recession caused by COVID-19 and the collapse of the crucial tourist trade.
Royal family opponents have been emboldened in recent months as their number of student protesters against the establishment has grown.
Protesters have recently begun to protest wearing crop tops that expose their midriff to mock the King, who has been photographed in similar clothing at airports and German malls.
The protests have been sparked by reports of the king’s enormous wealth, estimated by that of London Financial times between $ 30 billion and $ 40 billion, after sovereign funds were effectively placed under his direct control by the leaders of a successful 2014 coup.
He is believed to be the richest king in the world.
As The Daily Beast recently reported, Vajiralongkorn is also said to have built an extraordinary fleet of 38 jets and helicopters for the exclusive use of the Thai royal family.
Reports of his gilded life at the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in Garmish-Partenkirchen, where his retinue of 20 concubines who have all been awarded the same honorific have also tarnished his national and international reputation.
Cables written by Eric John when he was the US Ambassador to Bangkok and published by Wikileaks describe the king’s strange behavior. The cables said he adored his dog, Fufu, and gave him the title of Air Chief Marshal. He is said to have taken the dog to an official dinner “dressed in formal evening attire complete with paw mitts,” where he drank from the guests’ water glasses.