Kerryd

Societies that show leniency towards the worst criminals do not show a reduction in crime. I'm guessing that societies that take a harsh view towards serious crimes have many fewer criminals left to reoffend. What do places like Vietnam, Singapore (and most Muslim) countries do with murderers and drug dealers ? Little chance they'll ever re-offend - or write books about how hard they had it. LONG read below. Feel free to skip it. That's actually a (common) misquote and is misattributed apparently. The actual quote: Is misattributed to Dostoevsky though it's hard to find who may have originally come up with it. (I've done some searching and it's the consensus that Dostoevsky never wrote that quote - but no one is sure who actually did. Most quote sites give credit to him - but can't reference where the quote was written and it's NOT "Crime and Punishment" either.) Dostoevsky had been arrested in 1849 and sentenced to death for being a member of a conspiracy plot. He was taken to a spot to be executed along with 8 others in late Dec. They were divided into 3 groups with Dostoevsky in the 2nd group. As the first group was being lined up to be shot, a courier arrived with a note from Tsar Nicholas I commuting their sentences. They were then sent to prison where Dostoevsky spent nearly 5 years in harsh conditions. He was released in early 1854. His book "House of the Dead" was published in 1861 and the first parts of Crime and Punishment 5 years later. AND - it is very possible the quote does NOT mean what most people think it does. While it may not have been Dostoevsky that wrote it, it probably was another Russian. Perhaps a friend or fellow writer. And that person may have thought that locking people in prisons for life was cruel and unusual punishment and that they should be given quick, painless executions instead. That is actually a sentiment that many people believe today, though many of them also don't believe in capital punishment. (Which begs the question they don't like being asked - if you won't execute prisoners and think locking them up for long periods is inhumane - then how do you think society should deal with murderers, rapists, drug dealers, war criminals and the like ?) In any event - places like Thailand still believe that (poor) people who break the law should be punished. Not sent to country resorts where they spend their time idling in luxury at the taxpayer's expense. (That's saved for the rich, powerful and politically connected criminals of course.) I mean - sheesh - a few years ago a Canadian with a long history of criminal convictions and prison time came to Thailand using "stolen" ID (that was never reported as stolen of course). After a year here, he murdered his girlfriend, mutilated her face, dismembered her body and discarded the remains in a local swamp before hopping on a plane back to Canada - still using that "stolen" ID. He was arrested - for violating his probation - and sent to prison. Thailand spent years trying to extradite him and was finally able to in what, 2010 ? He was sentenced to life in prison and sent to Bang Kwan. 5 years later his lawyer and a newspaper reporter in Toronto concocted a sob story about the poor guy suffering in a Thai prison for "half a decade" after being "wrongfully convicted" (because, in his opinion, he should have been tried for manslaughter, not murder). (They deliberately used "half a decade" to try and make it sound longer than "5 years".) He applied to the Canadian "Public Safety Minister" (a scumbag Liberal that never met a criminal - or terrorist - that he didn't want to set free and put back on the streets) for a Prisoner Transfer. Which that Minister agreed to - even though he'd been personally informed (by me actually) about the guy's long criminal record and exactly what he'd done to that girl he murdered. Didn't matter. Not only was the guy brought back to Canada almost immediately (and in secret) - he was released within a couple weeks !! FREE and clear ! NO probation or anything ! I found out when I read that he'd been arrested in Canada less than a year after he'd transferred, for a string of armed robberies he'd done after he'd been released !! THAT is what "Canada" considers "punishment" for a career criminal that murdered a woman, chopped her body into pieces and threw it into a swamp. How should a society like THAT be judged ? It seems in a lenient society, criminals are more likely to re-offend because they have NO fear of the consequences. While in a harsh society, most criminals do not want to go to prison again because they DO fear the consequences.

It would take a competent investigator about 3 seconds to determine if the victim had been killed at that spot or killed elsewhere and dumped there. Even AFTER the rest of the cops had already contaminated the crime scene. Remember the Koh Tao murders when they showed the crime scene and even allowed civilians (and possible suspects) to saunter through it before they even knew what had actually happened. It was far to easy to "drop" some evidence (or remove some) as it seems no one was trying to control the area. Bleeding from the ears and nose might indicated the victim had been beaten/tortured before being killed. Probably the reason for the stab wounds as well. The gunshot to the neck was probably after the victim told them (whatever). An autopsy would determine that as well as an approximate time of death. Lack of documentation could be from the attackers keeping it - or "someone" rifled the body before calling the cops. With all the CCTV cameras everywhere these days, they could try to find some along the route to where the body was found then review the footage from the evening of 14 May to the morning of the 15th (when the body was found) and look for any vehicles that drove towards where the body was found - and then drove back within a few minutes (or so depending on how far between the cameras and the location of the body). (I seem to recall something like that happening not that long ago. Police reviewing CCTV footage identified a possible suspect vehicle seen driving towards where a crime had happened and then seen driving back again. The details are fuzzy but I think that even though they could make out the make/model of vehicle, they couldn't identify the possible owner/driver or something.) (I was going to go with the "apparent suicide" joke as well but someone beat me to it !)

Surprised that the Chinese would even bother doing scam business in Thailand when they could do it in Cambodia far easier - and cheaper - and probably have full police protection as well. (The Sen's are very, very friendly with China. Just like a former PM who was also very friendly with the Sens - and China - and just happened to be the one that brought the whole Elite Card business into being.) And gee - what is one of the BEST ways ever to launder money ? If you said "casinos" you'd be spot on. Especially when those casinos are set up on land that keeps most police from investigating anything. Now it's even better as criminals can launder cash through casinos and get their "winnings" in Bitcoin that they can send pretty much anywhere without it being traced. While not "laundering" heres a clue. Not long after Trump opened his casino in Atlantic City, he was losing money (somehow - probably by skimming too much off the top for himself). He got to the point if he missed the next mortgage payment, the bank would foreclose on the casino. His father sent one of his trusted accountants to the casino with $3 million in cash. The accountant bought $3 mil in chips - and then gave them back without ever making a single bet. The casino got $3 mil and could then turn around and sell the chips again. Pure profit. (It was illegal as it violated some financial laws but the Feds wouldn't learn of it until many years later it seems.) But it illustrates how easy it is to simply drop a ton of cash in a casino and walk out with (whatever percentage) of "clean" money that can't be traced. (Or have it in Bitcoin and sent anywhere in the world within minutes.) Hmmm, I wonder who is behind the push to open money-laundering centers - er, I mean "casinos" - in Thailand ?

I guess you skipped over the 2nd line of the original post where it said: Unless you think that call center scam groups are "legitimate businesses" ?

It they were Chinese it wouldn't have even made the news. In other cases where Chinese tourists were caught doing something it barely registered a response of any kind. No one cared. And they still don't - unless the offender is "non-Asian" of course.

You should ask an actual lawyer however I doubt too many of them have any experience with trying to probate a Will in a foreign country. The easiest method is to simply have 2 Wills. One "back home" to cover your assets there and one in Thailand to cover your assets here. Much simpler, especially if you have just one beneficiary. If you are trying to split assets in 2 different countries amongst heirs in 2 different countries with each being Willed stuff in the other country - then YOU deserve the headaches of trying to sort that out. Simple fact. Unless you are leaving a fortune to someone in a different country, it may not be worth their time and effort to go to that other country to try and claim those assets. Friend of mine (American) kicked the bucket back in America years ago. Left some of his Thai assets to his sister but it wasn't worth the cost of flying here, trying to probate the Will (which requires a 45 day waiting period after notification of death to allow family and creditors to lay claims against the estate) and then claiming the small amount of money and whatever momentos he may have left in Thailand. Basically she'd have spent $10,000 to claim $7,000 in cash and (whatever was left in his rented house). My dad had 2 Wills, one in Canada and one in Thailand. I was the sole heir in each. Due to working (in Afghanistan) I couldn't make it back to probate the Thai Will until almost 3 months after his death. Because it was well past the 45 day waiting period, I was able to go to court (with my Lawyer and translator) and have the Will probated in about 30 minutes. I was able to go to Canada a couple months later (with his Canadian Will and certified True Copies of the Death Certificate) and start the process back there. But there is a waiting period there as well and the Will actually ended up being "probated" in my absence about 6 weeks later. I was able to do some stuff (like cancel his pension payments and arrange for the overpayments to be returned, do his final taxes, ect, etc). On my next trip to Canada I was able to do all the little things (close his bank account, empty his safe deposit box, transfer his house and so on). Which is something you also have to consider. In some cases people will appoint an Executor (makes you wonder how they picked that title) whose job it is to carry out the last wishes of the deceased. Often the Executor is either the heir or the lawyer. As the Executor, that person has the authority to distribute the assets in the Will according to the instructions in the Will. He/she can arrange to transfer assets, close accounts, make payments and so on. (It's like having a Power of Attorney over the assets.) And as the Executor, if they incur expenses in the performance of their duties, they can be re-imbursed by assets in the Estate. (So if I had to pay a lawyer to do the Probate, I could withdraw money from the deceased's bank account to pay the bill. Same if he owed taxes or had outstanding bills/credit card balances and so on). If you had a single Will, you could run into a lot of issues as the laws in different countries, especially with regards to the transfer of assets and taxes, could be quite different. For example, in some countries you could Will 75% of your estate to your brother or uncle and split the remaining 25% between your wife and 4 daughters. However, in other countries that would not even be remotely allowed (despite the efforts of some groups to try and change that). The area where you would run into problems is if you had a Will "back home" for your assets there and then made a new Will here that included those same assets but had different beneficiaries. (i.e. your Will "back home" left everything to your son and sister including your country estate and priceless artwork. But then you make a new Will in Thailand and leave all that to your "wife you met in the bar last week" and cut your family out of everything. You can bet the "new Will" would be contested by your relatives - in a court back home. And your teerak would have a hard time trying to use a Thai court to enforce the terms of the Thai Will in a foreign country.) If you really want her to inherit (whatever) back home then you should arrange for it to be transferred to her before you kick the bucket - or take steps to have the marriage recognized "back home" and make a NEW Will back there and destroy your old one. I was lucky in the sense that I didn't have to worry about stuff like that as I was the Executor and sole beneficiary. Still had to do the work to have the Wills probated and dispose of the assets, but there wasn't an issue with (distant) relatives or "other" people trying to claim any part of his estate in either country.

Pathetic. Remember when they took the 750 Baht "Departure tax" and hid it in the cost of airline tickets (the airline charges you the tax as a part of the ticket price and remits the money to the gov't). Then a couple years ago Anutin whined that "foreigners" were skipping out on their hospital bills and they (the hospitals) had lost around 300 million baht. So they proposed a new tax be added to airline tickets to cover those costs. At a time when they were getting nearly 40 million "arrivals" every year. 10 (TEN) baht per ticket would have easily covered that cost. So what did they do ? Decided to levy a THREE HUNDRED baht tax instead. So instead of collecting 400 million (to offset the 300 mil in unpaid hospital bills) the gov't want to collect 12 BILLION in new revenue. Gee, I wonder where the surplus 11,700,000,000 baht would go ? And now they want ANOTHER 300 baht per ticket because they are getting too many tourists ??? Gee, that's another 12 bil in the kitty. I wonder whose pockets that will go into. I wonder what their Chinese masters will think about that (unless the tax is only applied to tickets NOT coming from mainland China of course).

They copied the money before the UC used it so they had proof the money the suspect had was the same the UC used. But it says they charged him with "possession of illegal drugs for personal use." - not with trafficking/selling drugs. And they don't say what he was doing for the "working without a work permit" charge. Won't matter except for when he's sentenced. For that small amount, they'll probably just deport him after a couple weeks and blacklist him. When he gets back to Canada the Police won't even look at him or, at worst, will guide him to the closest taxi stand with directions to the nearest Welfare office so he can get a wad of cash and free place to stay.

It is NOT "Thai culture". If you think it is then you have NO idea what "Thai culture" really is. The endless water fights have evolved from the traditional Thai Songkran celebration. Originally, it was a celebration of the end of the "dry season" and a time when wandering Buddhist monks would find a temple to settle down at during the coming rainy season (from back in the times before paved roads and trains and cars and such. When cart paths would turned into muddy quagmires for months at a time) In the old days, monks would often leave their temple at the start of the dry season and walk to - somewhere else. You still see that to this day. I often pass lone monks or small groups of them walking along a road somewhere in the middle of nowhere, on their way to a new temple or somewhere that needed more monks. Thais would celebrate by washing the feet of their parents/grandparents/elders and thanking them for all they've done. It is also a time when people would wash/clean Buddha statues in temples. (Basically like a big "spring cleaning".) People would dab a bit of powder on other people's faces and use their fingers to sprinkle a little bit of water on the heads of others (symbolically "washing" them). It was never a "endless water fight from dusk 'till dawn". It was also a ONE day event, which would start in the Northwest (Mae Hong Son/Chiang Mai area), then the next day would move to provinces a bit South and East and the next day it would be in other provinces further South and further East and so on. (Songkran dates back to the days when most people had to walk or ride in carts pulled by water buffalo. And of course, no phones or mail or even telegraph back then. Hence why it would start in one place and slowly work it's way across the country.) Took about a week. 1 day each in different areas of the country. It's still like that in some places though now they too have "water fights". Couple years ago I was in a small village in Sa Kaeo during Songkran and basically the entire "festival" was held at a local temple. People did the feet washing and thanking their elders in their homes before going to the temple to wash the statues and clean their family "chedis". In the afternoon there was party and "water fight" in a grassy area that quickly turned into a mud pit. The kids and young adults played and the older folks sat at tables around the "fight" eating and drinking while music blared from huge speakers. And that was it. No one was throwing water outside the temple grounds or in the village. And the next day, things were back to normal. And then the tourists came along and basically ruined it because they thought it would be more fun to throw water at other people than to "lightly sprinkle" some on people's heads (as was the custom before). And that led to Songkran turning into a massive water fight, mainly in touristy areas (which tells you it is NOT about "Thai culture"). And then it expanded to being 3 days in some places. I remember that in Pattaya when they started "playing water" the day before the "official" day up to the day after. (And that made people a bit "salty" even then !) Then it expanded to starting the same day in Pattaya as it traditionally started in the Northwest. And it went for a week. Now it's nearly 10 days ! People started throwing water on Soi 7 a few days ago and the "official" day is the 19th. 3 days - OK. 10 days - no thanks. (Many of my Thai friends went back to their home villages for a week to celebrate in the Traditional way and get away from the city.)

So the guy goes missing on 18 March and NO ONE reports it ? Not even his girlfriend ? What happened to her ? Why didn't this make the news - until nearly a month later ? And in a UK "media site" of course. Funny, the Mirror article says she "posted several tributes online to her partner." Must be on a private platform or on a different profile. No public posts on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Same for Theo. Of the nearly 20 "Theo Bailey" Facebook profiles I looked at - none are this guy. I find it really hard to believe that he'd be out drinking with his girlfriend of 10 years, go missing, be found dead the next morning - and she makes NO mention of it ? Until it appears in the Mirror a month later ? (Keep in mind that media sites like the Mirror and Sun "buy" people's "horror travel stories" and "buff" them before publishing them. One advertisement I saw proclaimed they'd "pay for your holiday" if you had a good(horror) story to tell.) And no - there's no way "they" could cover this up for a month. (I just found a Twitter post about this from a lawyer in the UK dated 30 March - with no links or references to where he heard it from. I responded to his tweet and asked where he got his information from.) Funny, literally no information about "Theo Bailey" other than he's 31. But we know she's a teaching assistant from Chelmsford and who she's working for and where (Welwyn Garden City, Hertsfordshire). No mention of where he came from, or his job, or even if his parents were notified or what happened to his body. And the article says: "The authorities said that the case "was still open", however, no arrests have been made at this time." "Thai police said they are waiting for the post-mortem results." Riiiight. I looked and no "GoFundMe" - kind of hard to start asking for money a month after the event happened. Lots of unanswered questions.

Likely drunk, passed out, hit his head on the sidewalk. Bled for a bit, sat up, taxi guy sees him and calls for help. I remember back in the late 90s when bars had to close by 6am but were allowed to open again at 10 (which just meant they turned off the lights and music and put the customer's "bin cups" below the counter and continued serving them). I used to jog from my hotel down to Walking Street then around the far end and up to the Big Buddha and back to the hotel. One morning I jogged past the bar I'd been drinking in a few hours earlier and there was a drunk passed out on the side of that little path across from the Marine Bar (that goes past where the Blues Factory used to be and comes out behind the Marine Hotel). He was off to the side of the path with his head in the little rain gutter, people sitting on bar stools behind him. Staff in the bars looking bored (or sleeping) and no one paying any attention to the guy. Just another morning in Pattaya. Probably happens somewhere in the city literally every night.

That was exactly why they said they stopped requiring them at the airports a couple years ago. Seems all those forms were going into boxes when then went into warehouses where they've been stacked and stored ever since they first started making those forms. I thought they'd stopped using them everywhere though and was a bit surprised when I came into Thailand from Cambodia (at Aranyaprathet) last Nov and had to fill one out. And many forms at Immigration still ask for your "TM.6" number - which people who arrive by air can't give because - no TM.6. So if people arriving by Air don't have to enter a TM.6 number - why expect anyone else to do it ? Especially as most arrivals are by air. Makes the whole "TM.6" requirement pretty redundant. And the information on them was pretty much useless for the most part. Age and nationality was probably the only useful data. You can bet most people lied about their income level and had no clue what their address in Thailand was going to be.

Remember - in Thailand they ONLY count the deaths that happen at the scene. If they load people in pick-ups or those "local volunteer" rescue vans and they die on the way to the hospital - or at the hospital - they aren't counted towards the total "road accident deaths". But yeah, pre-Covid Thailand was always in the top 1-2 spots in the entire world for number of road accidents (per capita) and number of deaths (per capita). In the entire world. (Though to be fair a lot of countries either don't report their statistics or drastically downplay them. Primarily 3rd world and "least developed" nations. So Thailand is probably only "top 10" which is still crazy when you look at the size of the country and population.) And note - 86% of the accidents involved motorcycles.

I'm guessing he shi-ite himself and didn't want to walk around with it dripping down his legs. Hence the security guard hosing him down. Though they would have been better served by escorting him to (any) nearby bathroom where there'd have been more privacy.

A Swedish friend of mine wanted to go to Vietnam (on motorcycles) a couple months ago. I checked online and there wasn't a lot of information. We'd gone to Cambodia in November and that was a learning experience. Found out he could get a "45 day" stamp at the border - but I (Canadian) needed a visa. Very little information about taking motorcycles in/out of Vietnam though. And the only thing I could get online (even in dedicated Motorcycle forums) was "you need to hire a guide" and "you need to pay an agent". Buddy decided to try it anyways by himself. After spending 4 hours at the Vietnam border and getting no where, he said to hell with it and came back to Thailand. You always need to check requirements before you travel to any foreign country. ALWAYS. Too many people "assume" that everything should be "just like back home" or that they have some kind of special privilege because of their nationality. And then get a rude awakening when they find out different.