tartempion Posted June 28, 2009 Report Share Posted June 28, 2009 From The Sunday Times June 28, 2009 British couple fights Bangkok airport extortionists Two tourists were held by an airport gang until they paid up £8,000 Stephen Ingram & Cissy Lin Stephen Ingram and Xi Lin were falsely accused of stealing from a shop at Bangkok airport A British couple who were falsely accused of shoplifting in Bangkok airport and were forced to pay £8,000 in bribes to secure their release are to take legal action for compensation. They were the victims of an extortion racket that has ensnared other foreign travellers at the airport, which handles most of the 800,000 British visitors to Thailand every year. Stephen Ingram, 49, and Xi Lin, 45, both technology professionals from Cambridge, were detained by security guards as they went to board Qantas flight QF1 to London on the night of Saturday, April 25. They were accused of taking a Givenchy wallet worth £121 from a King Power duty-free shop and were handed over to the police. An official release order from the local Thai prosecutor’s office subsequently conceded there was no evidence against them. They were freed five days later after a frightening ordeal in which they said they were threatened and held against their will at a cheap motel on the airport perimeter until they had handed over the money. The bribes were paid to an intermediary named Sunil “Tony†Rathnayaka, a Sri Lankan national in his fifties who works as a “volunteer†interpreter for Thailand’s tourist police (motto: “To serve and to protectâ€Â). “Our main motivation is to protect other innocent British tourists from being caught up in this nightmare,†said Ingram last week. “We intend to take every legal means to recover our money and obtain justice.†Last week Rathnayaka admitted in a telephone interview that he had received cash and money transfers amounting to more than £7,000 from the Britons. He said the money was for police bail and for a payment to a figure he called “Little Big Man†who could withdraw the case against them. “In Thailand everyone knows it’s like that,†he said. “They can go to jail or they can just pay a fine and go home. It is corruption, you know?†Rathnayaka also agreed that the “bail† about £4,000  was never returned to Ingram and Xi. Thai law says bail should be refunded. In a detailed statement the couple said they were first detained at an airport office of the tourist police and later taken to cells at a police station in an isolated modern building on the fringes of the airport. Rathnayaka confirmed that he met them in the cells on the morning of Sunday, April 26, and arranged the “bailâ€Â. The police kept the couple’s passports. Rathnayaka then escorted Ingram and Xi to the Valentine Resort, a lurid pink motel a few hundred yards from the runways. They were to remain there for four days. During that time, Rathnayaka warned them not to tell anyone about their plight, especially the British embassy, lawyers, friends, family or the press. However, on April 27 they sneaked out of the hotel and found their way to the embassy, where they met Kate Dufall, the pro-consul. According to the couple, she told them the embassy could not interfere with the Thai legal system and put them in contact with Prachaya Vijitpokin, a lawyer. Vijitpokin and a colleague, Kittamert Engchountada, of the Lawyers Association of Thailand, urged them to stay in the country to fight the case and have since assembled a dossier for potential prosecutions. However, Ingram said the couple were so terrified by this stage that they decided to meet the demands for money, which they raised by bank transfers from Britain direct to Rathnayaka’s account. The Sunday Times has copies of the transactions. Ingram and Xi were put on a British Airways flight to London early on Friday, May 1, having received their passports with official documents from prosecutors and police stating that no charges were to be brought against them. They have said they are willing to return to Thailand and testify to try to stop the extortion if the government will guarantee their safety. That could become a priority for Thailand, which has suffered a series of blows to its tourist industry through economic and political upheaval. Inquiries last week established that Rathnayaka and his accomplices have continued preying on tourists who end up in police custody after being accused of theft from the airport duty-free shop. “I am just helping people,†he explained. “I don’t get paid to do this. All the embassies know me.†Officials at the Danish embassy confirmed that a Danish woman fell into Rathnayaka’s hands about two weeks ago and was allowed to leave Thailand only after handing over more than £4,500. When a Sunday Times journalist posing as a businessman in trouble contacted Rathnayaka last week, the first thing he said was: “If it’s a case, for example, of shoplifting at the airport duty-free then I can help. Bail is 100,000 baht (£1,800).†He later declined an interview, saying the Sri Lanka embassy  which employs him as an interpreter  had told him not to speak. The Foreign Office said consular officials had offered to raise the case with the Thai authorities at the time but had been asked by the couple not to intervene. A spokesman for King Power duty-free said the company had strict rules for evidence to be submitted to the police in shoplifting cases, but added: “We cannot control what happens after that.†Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted June 28, 2009 Report Share Posted June 28, 2009 Hi, First questions that comes to mind is "Did they the Givenchy wallet on their person?", and if they did "Did they have the receipt for it?" Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bangkoktraveler Posted June 28, 2009 Report Share Posted June 28, 2009 Times are tough so Thais rip off tourists. Tourists get pissed off because of getting scammed and ripoffed, they don't come to Thailand. Sounds like another beer mat scam to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tartempion Posted June 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2009 It seems the trick is when you pay what you purchased at King Power an employee slips a "free gift" in your plastic KP bag. Later on you get stopped and your purchase ticket gets verified and you get busted because a KP item is not on the bill cops are called, bribes need to be paid to get on your plane etc etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Toad Posted June 28, 2009 Report Share Posted June 28, 2009 I have heard stories about this kind of scam before. And there is little doubt that with business levels well down the scammers (and those who help them) are getting more devious and trapping innocent people. It can not be easy to steal a watch - most are toed down or behind glass. I suppose the answer is not to buy anything in duty free. If everybody did that King Power might do something about it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted June 28, 2009 Report Share Posted June 28, 2009 Hi, "If everybody did that King Power might do something about it!" Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if King Power was in on it. Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest lazyphil Posted June 28, 2009 Report Share Posted June 28, 2009 <> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2469629/Teenagers-cause-havoc-for-tourists-punting-on-Cambridge-river.html hey, corruption and 'ransom' and scumbags in every tourist town Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clubsiam Posted June 28, 2009 Report Share Posted June 28, 2009 Tourists are facing too many scams. AOT Limo scam, Duty Free Scam, Rouge Custom Officers, Taxi Mafia. BMA Police scamming tourists. Thai Royal Police running the Gem Scam. Taxi Mafia and Tuk Tuk drivers all scheming to defraud visitors. Upstairs bars(run by cops) in Pat Pong robbing customers. Temple is closed scammers on every corner. Aggressive touts shoving pornographic brochures into your face every 50 meters.... How long before tourists stop coming I wonder? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faustian Posted June 28, 2009 Report Share Posted June 28, 2009 They wont stop, but how much bad publicity does this country need or can take? As usual the government don't say a fucking thing. Why isn't Abhisit making public proclamations condemning these acts? It would help to see the PM getting involved. It might restore some confidence and help the ailing tourist industry. This is a really serious, highly organised scam, which appears to have been perpetrated several times! But I forgot...it's just farang getting fucked over....by the "police"...no one gives a shit about that. All the while, Thailand's reputation gets worse and worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clubsiam Posted June 28, 2009 Report Share Posted June 28, 2009 If you read about one case, then surely, it happened a thousand more times. I forgot to mention the magnetometer heist crew and the organized luggage pilfering gang. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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