Pattaya is plagued by massive gangs of armed motorbike racers, hundreds strong, intent on causing mayhem.

Pattaya is plagued by massive gangs of armed motorbike racers, hundreds strong, intent on causing mayhem. They regularly challenge each other to Mad Max-like races, almost always ending up with one or more being shot dead or seriously injured. Yet, again, on the night of July 13, 2008, there was an shooting incident with 1 death and 5 injuries. Police suspect that, apart from the armed gangs, there are also irate individuals, heartily tired of this motorbike racing menace, who also arm themselves, lie in wait and take the opportunity to blow away members of these gangs. At 01.30 am, on July 13, Pol.Lt.Col.Jakarin Tou-suparb, Banglamung Investigator, was notified that a six motorbike teenage gang members had been shot and injured. The gunshot victims had already been taken to Banglamung Hospital for treatment. The Chief-of-Police was informed and police team went to investigate.
At the hospital Emergency Room, police found the 6 injured teens: Mr.Sakda Namloon (16) shot in his left leg; Mr. Surasak Gnao-sri (18) shot in his left arm, right leg and in the head; Mr. Nattapol Ronruengsak (18) shot in the stomach; Mr. Wongwan Maliges (18) shot in his right arm; and Mr. Narin Keao-gaew (16) shot in the body. Most of these teenagers had sustained minor injuries; however, Mr. Twin Tengwises (21), who had sustained a serious stomach wound, had later died from his injuries.
Apparently, most of the injured teens were friends who live in Pattaya area and the periphery. They had come out on motorbikes to watch a motorbike race by other racing gangs that is usually set up on Road No. 331, every weekend, near the Pattaya International School under Banglamung police jurisdiction. After the race was over, the friends and others were riding home in groups. Suddenly, around the Pong sub-district Bridge and Krating-rai Road, a number of armed motorcyclists and a blue pick-up truck started chasing them, took a number of shots and then escaped. Many of motorbike teens were injured and some managed to reach hospital. Police know well that most Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and days off, groups of boys and girls in teen gangs congregate and then engage in motorbike races. Each group has at least 20 to 50 people on motorbikes and they generally cause a hazard and nuisance to locals and car drivers on the road. Each time that police try to arrest them, but they spread the alarm among themselves and manage to evade capture. Usually, they parade their motorbikes, modified for road-racing, on Road No. 331 and, very often, they get into fights or start shooting each other. There have been many deaths and injuries in the past among these gangs. But this time, they were shot by a number of mysterious gunmen who were on motorbikes and a pick-up truck. Police assume that these gunmen are people who have reached the end of their tether as regards the mad antics of the teenagers and acted as vigilantes, mostly shooting to scare, rather than kill. A police spokesman said they aim to crack down on these motorcycle gangs to avoid a repetition of the shootings; they already have numerous individuals on record. Police will continue to search for the perpetrators of the July 13 shootings, who will be prosecuted if caught.

National police chief, Sereepisut Taemeeyaves, sacked for alleged corruption.

Thai governments tend to rely on the army or the police (or both) to remain in power. So their commands have always been deeply politicised. Like other public institutions they are dominated by a narrow elite of families with tentacles everywhere. “You find the same few surnames wherever you look,” notes Michael Nelson, a political scientist in Bangkok. Indeed, Mr Sereepisut's replacement as police chief has the same surname as a former army chief—his brother.The prime suspects are often the Thai police. Among current cases are a group of border police accused of abducting innocent people and extorting money from them, and a huge car-theft ring thought to have been run by bent coppers. The prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, this month sacked the national police chief, Sereepisut Taemeeyaves, for alleged corruption. Mr Sereepisut insists he is the victim of a conspiracy by crooked subordinates. Earlier this month the justice minister visited Chalor Kerdthes, a former police general serving life in jail, belatedly seeking progress on the “blue diamond” affair of the early 1990s, which wrecked Thailand's relations with Saudi Arabia. After the priceless gem and other jewels were stolen from a Saudi royal palace by a Thai worker, three Saudi diplomats seeking their return were murdered in Bangkok. The Thai police supposedly solved the case but the jewels they sent back to Riyadh were fake. Mr Chalor arranged the murders of the family of a gem dealer involved in the case. It is suspected he can dish the dirt on other former police chiefs.Cases of police graft and abuse of power are legion. In 2003 Thailand's then prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra—a former mid-ranking policeman and businessman—told police to wage “war on drugs”, resulting in at least 1,300 extra-judicial killings. The army removed Mr Thaksin in a coup in 2006, promising a thorough investigation of the deaths. It had made little progress by last December's election, won by allies of Mr Thaksin. In March the American government's annual human-rights report on Thailand criticised the widespread torture of suspects. Last year 751 people died in prison or police custody. Abuses by police (and soldiers) have worsened an insurgency in Thailand's mainly Muslim southern provinces, in which 3,000 people have died since 2004. Predictably, opinion polls show the police are widely mistrusted. Experts say Thailand's force is not the world's worst: it does have some honest, capable investigators. However, for a country of a fairly high state of development, its record is abysmal. After decades of failed attempts at police reform, a panel set up after the 2006 coup proposed sweeping changes, including creating an independent police-complaints body. Some of the panel's reformists may be sincere. But this looked suspiciously like an attempt to curb Mr Thaksin's power base in the police. Now Mr Samak, although a supposed ally of Mr Thaksin, seems to be building bridges with army chiefs to bolster his own power. So his motives in sacking the police chief and talking of continuing the military government's reforms are also bound to be questioned. Thai public servants are less loyal to the institutions that employ them than to their loose network of connections—relatives, ex-classmates from military training or old university chums. The 2006 coup pitted Mr Thaksin's schoolmates against those of General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, the then army chief. Police reforms elsewhere have generally succeeded only where a public-spirited and untainted political leadership forced them through. When will Thailand get that sort of leadership?

Maurice Praill arrested on a charge of child sexual abuse

Maurice Praill, 77, from Harold Hill, Essex, was sent to Nongplalai prison, Pattaya, after Sudarat Sereewat a member of the country’s National Child Protection Committee complained ‘on behalf of the children of Thailand’.Praill had earlier boasted that a local policeman played the keyboards at his wedding to a 15-yr-old child bride in a ceremony blessed by Buddhist monks.
Praill was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to 14 years in jail for the rape of two under-aged girls in Pattaya. But he never did time. He got bail to appeal against his conviction and when he lost his appeal in 2004, he was given bail again to appeal to Thailand’s Supreme Court.He was arrested again last year together with three other foreigners and charged again with child sex abuse. In this case it was alleged young girls were delivered to foreigners on the back of a motorcycle. One of the alleged victims in this case was the daughter of Praill’s latest maid.
Praill was bailed. But the prosecution subsequently offered no evidence against him although an American was subsequently jailed for 16 years.Then last month Praill was arrested for sexually abusing an eight year old boy. Again he was bailed, this time for 400,000 Thai baht (£6,411).

Ivor Chandler, 56, from Skelton, East Cleveland, fatally stabbed in the throat

A Briton was murdered in Thailand by a mentally disturbed man who was jealous of the man’s forthcoming marriage to his sister.Retired ICI worker Ivor Chandler, 56, from Skelton, East Cleveland, had been taken by a his Thai girlfriend, Chumporn, 28, from the resort of Pattaya to meet her parents, in the northern province of Phetchabun at the weend when Chandler was killed.Shortly after his arrival late last week in the village of Khlong Thom he was attacked by the girl’s brother and fatally stabbed in the throat.Police Captain Komchart Kankasaen said: “The brother, Tui Minim, is now in custody. He is not mentally well. He has to be looked after 24 hours a day by his family. He has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals.”“It seems that he was jealous of all the attention the foreigner. He did not like strangers and he was used to getting all the attention.”Mr.Chandler made regular visits to Thailand to visit his girlfriend. They planned to marry later this year.

John Paul Jones Australian was arrested in Thailand

An Australian was arrested in Thailand after a doctor allegedly discovered 65 plastic bags filled with $31,608 in hashish in his stomach, police said.
John Paul Jones, 51, was visiting the island of Ko Samui when he was rushed to the hospital after complaining of severe stomach pain, the Bangkok Post reported.
An X-ray of Jones's intestine showed a sausage-like string of objects that were surgically removed and identified as 800 grams of hashish.
"Before the operation, Mr Jones looked nervous and asked whether police would be notified. We found 62 black objects obstructing his small intestine. Three packs had burst," Dr Worapob said.It is reported that it took doctors two hours to remove the drugs, which were concealed in condoms and probably smuggled into Thailand from India or Pakistan.Authorities said Jones would be held for questioning and charges.

Assets of a gang accused of involvement in smuggling Myanmar workers to Thailand siezed

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) will cooperate with Thailand's police in adopting harsh punishment as well as seizing the assets of a gang accused of involvement in smuggling Myanmar workers to Thailand last week, causing 54 of them to die in a suffocation tragedy, a senior DSI officer said Monday.
Pol. Col. Suchart Wongananchai, commander of the DSI's foreign affairs and international crime office, said after visiting the southern coastal province of Ranong on the Myanmar border to follow-up developments in relation to the 54 Myanmar workers who died of suffocation in a seafood container truck last Thursday that Thailand's response to the incident was being closely watched by international human rights organisations.The workers secretly entered Ranong province and were travelling to Phuket province, locked in the storage compartment of a refrigerated seafood transfer vehicle. A Thai businessman was apprehended Friday in Ranong, but the truck's driver was still at large.As anti-human trafficking laws are not yet enforced in Thailand, Pol. Col. Suchart said the DSI had proposed that assets of those involved in this case should be confiscated.
He said a detailed investigation was conducted after the incident and it was found that an illegal smuggling gang would "earn not less than Bt100,000 per trip".Smuggling of foreign labour into the country should be considered as an economic crime and the freezing of assets should be imposed on the network, Pol. Col. Suchart said.He said 50 survivors from the tragedy would be asked to become witnesses in the criminal case and "not accused persons". Thailand's Ministry of Justice would be responsible for their expenses while staying in Thailand.The DSI is now compiling information on gangs which smuggle Myanmar workers into Thailand via border districts in Kanchanaburi and Tak provinces, he said. The illegal workers are usually sent to work in the fisheries in Samut Songkhram province, near Bangkok

Thai police said they planned to hold some survivors of a human trafficking disaster

Thai police said they planned to hold some survivors of a human trafficking disaster for questioning after witnesses gave police valuable information about the human smuggling network that trafficked them into Thailand from Myanmar.Survivors of the disaster in which 54 migrants died arrive at Ranong Civil Court on Friday.Fifty-four migrants died in the back of a seafood truck headed for the Thai resort town of Phuket on Wednesday night when its air-conditioning failed.Thai police charged 50 of 67 survivors with the civil crime of committing illegal entry to the Kingdom of Thailand on Friday, according to Col.Kraithong Chanthongbai, chief of Suksamran police station, who is charge of the case. A court fined them $32 and ordered them to be deported to Myanmar. Those who cannot pay the fine would serve jail terms, the court heard said. At least 14 minors were deported immediately because they were too young to face court.Two other survivors who remained in hospital would not face prosecution as a sympathetic gesture, police said. According to survivors, each of the 121 people in the truck container had paid about $160 for a driver to take them into Thailand, which has long depended on cheap labor from neighboring countries, such as Burma, Cambodia and Laos.The Thai government lets in only a small number of immigrants from those countries, and that has led to a rise in smuggling cases. Up to 2 million immigrants from Myanmar have fled to Thailand to escape chronic poverty and political conflict at home.Many smuggled migrants who do make it to Thailand end up being abused by their employers.None of the 121 migrants had identity documents, police said, so authorities tried to identify them by relying on the word of survivors. Seventeen bodies had not yet been identified by Friday, when accounts from survivors like Win began to surface.Win spoke from a cell from a police station in Suksumran, where about 65 other survivors have been taken. The police chief there said he expects to see more would-be migrants.
"We still need more labor here," he said. "There are many construction projects going on."

Elliot Blake who died while on a round-the-world trip with his girlfriend.

The body of a 32-year-old Co Louth man who died in Thailand after allegedly taking a cocktail of drugs is expected back in Ireland today.Police said yesterday they had closed the file on the death of Elliot Blake (32), who died while on a round-the-world trip with his girlfriend.Mr Blake, who was understood to be living in Navan, Co Meath, died in a guest house in the early hours of last Monday after he was found staggering on the street.His girlfriend, Claire Duignan (23), from Westmeath, woke in the Top North guest house in the northern Thai capital of Chiang Mai to discover his body.Despite efforts to revive him, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police in Thailand said yesterday there was no evidence of foul play in Mr Blake’s death. However, the results of a post- mortem have not been released.The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed his death, and said it was providing assistance to his family. A spokeswoman refused to comment further, saying it was a private matter.His girlfriend told police that Mr Blake had been a heroin user in Ireland, and had acquired the substitute methadone from a local hospital.“Earlier in the evening we went out for some food and a few drinks, but nothing much,” Ms Duignan said yesterday.“We came back to the guest house and I went to the room, while Elliot stayed downstairs watching TV.“When I left him he was quite normal, then much later when he didn’t come back to the room I went looking for him.“I found him on a nearby road staggering back to the guest house. He was completely different from when I left him and I had to help him back to the room. When I woke up I didn’t realise he had died. I poured water on his face to wake him up but it didn’t work.“We’ve been travelling for a year now, Elliot used to use heroin in Ireland but since we’ve been traveling he hasn’t. When we got to Chiang Mai he went to a hospital and got some methadone.”It is understood Mr Blake may have combined methadone with valium, which led to his death. Chiang Mai is a popular destination with backpackers.
Mr Blake’s family travelled to Thailand earlier in the week to arrange for his body to be flown home.The couple had decided to travel around south-east Asia, and local sources said it was easy to access drugs in Chiang Mai.

Victor Bout Merchant of Death arrested

One of the world's most wanted illegal arms dealers, who allegedly supplied weapons to terrorist groups, was arrested at a hotel in Silom yesterday after slipping into the Thailand three months ago. Viktor Bout, 41, who goes by the alias Butt, a Russian national and former Soviet air force officer, was arrested at a restaurant on the 27th floor of the Sofitel hotel in Silom by a combined team of officers from the Crime Suppression Division and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The "Merchant of Death", regarded as the world's biggest illegal arms dealer was arrested by Thailand's police in Bangkok. Victor Bout, 41, a Russian who graduated from Moscow's Military Institute and known to be a Major in the KGB, is wanted for engaging in illegal arms trade in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South America, Europe, and selling arms and weaponry to the Taleban and Al Qaeda. He is also the most prominent foreign business man known to be breaking UN embargoes on arms sales to Bulgaria, Slovakia, Ukraine and Krygyzstan. Bout was arrested on the strength of a US warrant issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration.Victor Bout, who has the reputation as the "man who makes war possible", is believed to be the inspiration for Nicolas Cage's character in the 2005 film "Lord of War". In 2002, he evaded arrest stemming from a warrant issued by Belgium and interpol when he returned to Russia. The Russian Constitution protected him from extradition. He has also been investigated in several countries but has never been prosecuted for arms dealing. As implied in the movie, the illegal arms dealer is set free by the higher authorities of the very country that arrested him, primarily because these countries use him to sell arms to the enemies of their enemy in a war for wealth and profitable resources.
Bout speaks several languages and owns the largest private fleet of Soviet era cargo aircraft, obtained during the break-up of the Soviet Union.

It is chillingly possible that he has also obtained and sold some of the former USSR's nuclear weapons and ICBMs to countries that are at odds with the western powers. Bout has denied performing illegal acts. How this arrest and seizure of his cargo in Thailand will play out deserves scrutiny. Trade offs and back room deals to prevent information leaks about involvement of other countries and their officials in sanctioning arms selling, could conceal the brutal truth about these transactions and the bloody trail of death, destruction and misery it leaves behind. Bout could certainly be out of the picture, but someone from the same mold will take his place.