Innocence Lost

Wanna know about the inner workings of the Royal Thai Police? You heard all the hearsay and read some of those stories. But do you have proof? Did you learn anything the hard way? Here’s an eyewitness account:

Recently I was visiting a friend in Rangsit. It was a Friday night and we decided while his wife was out visiting neighbors a couple of streets away we would play some chess and keep each other company in their home.

If you play chess you know how time can fly. Hours can go by without realizing it. It is a sort of zen experience except that at the end of it you can be more frustrated than before. And it is, or can be addictive.

By a Reader

I played fairly serious chess for some years and at one point reached an Elo rating of close to 2,200. But my friend is more of an amateur. You now, the player that still enjoys the game and plays on against all odds until mated.

The kind that doesn’t see the absurdity of two geniuses playing chess in a movie and suddenly, one moves a piece and announces “checkmate,” to the other’s surprise.

That explains why in our third game with a rook and three pawns down without any compensation my friend was hanging on and on and on. We had not noticed the time go by and were surprised, when the phone rang that it was already 1.30 in the morning.

“Uh-oh” was our first thought. My friend’s wife never stayed out this late and the first thought was that something was up. We just had not noticed the late hour.

Sure enough. My friend’s wife called from the police station, where she had been placed under arrest along with 13 other people in a large cell. She was under arrest and the police wanted her to pay a 10,000 baht fine to be released immediately. She risked being charged with being in a casino and gambling, both of which are illegal in Thailand. Any house where ten or more people are playing cards can be seen to constitute a casino.

Here is what happened

My friend’s wife, Nok had been visiting friends in a house where there was a card game going on. About midnight the bell rang. The house was surrounded by police, even covering the alleyway behind the house where one “suspect” tried to leave the house by scaling the wall. They had apparently been called by an “informant.” At first the people inside were afraid to open the door but of course, under pressure and realizing they had little choice they allowed the police to enter the house.

It appears that in Thailand there are odd laws about card playing. As stated above ten people or more playing cards in a house is considered a sort of casino and gambling is illegal. Never mind that the stakes are five to twenty baht and the main purpose is the pleasure of company coupled with a bit of low level excitement. Later I learned from my friend that Nok goes occasionally and usually comes home 40 or 50 baht short or having won the same amount.

In any case what happened is this. The police informed everyone the fine was 10,000 baht to get released immediately. Otherwise they would all have to face the judge the next day and that a week in jail waiting for release was a possibility. That later went down to a few days, and eventually two. But the initial point was to frighten the people into paying the “fines.”

My friend told his wife to refuse to pay and to tell everyone else to do the same. Maybe not the wisest move, to make her the center of attention but as it happened, everyone refused to pay anyway.

The next day everyone did face the judge. Not in person, but via a video camera connected in a small room where each individual was questioned. All received fines, not of 10,000 baht but of 1,000 to 2,000 baht each and, all were released upon paying their fine.

Not a single one of the “perpetrators” received any sort of ticket, or proof of payment or information regarding a date to return to court or even the police. Nothing was on record except possible a list the police keep at the station to have recourse to every now and then.

It was in the evening of the next day Nok finally came home. I stayed the night with my friend and was there when she returned. She seemed to accept having been forced to pay a fine for which no proof was given. Not even a receipt. She seemed, in fact, relieved that it all just passed without more serious consequences. It was the first time in her life she had ever had a problem with the police and, she hoped, the last.

So beware in Thailand what you do, and never, ever assume that having harmless fun will exempt you from more serious consequences. Innocence lost can be lost in innocent ways. That’s life.





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December 12, 2009 | Filed Under Culture Shock, Nightlife & Entertainment, The Thai Mind 

Comments

12 Responses to “Innocence Lost”

  1. Tweets that mention Innocence Lost -- Topsy.com on December 12th, 2009 11.46 am

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by noname2nowhere, BangkokDan. BangkokDan said: (BLOG) Innocence Lost http://bit.ly/68TNSq [...]

  2. Rich on December 12th, 2009 3.55 pm

    Indeed. And all the while, Thailand presents itself as a wannabe serious player on the world stage. They can’t find a way to keep the military out of politics and they can’t find a way to stop the police force being a bigger organized crime syndicate than the mafiosi ever were in the USA.

    Despite being sometimes off-beat, there have been a number of excellent posts lately on Thai Intelligent News, one of which addresses exactly the law and order issue in the context of colonization. Interesting point made.

    It’s shameful really and it ought to be exquisitely embarrassing for Abhisit that his government is now considered to be even more corrupt than the Thaksin government. Suprisingly though, Abhisit shows no sign of even being aware that he should be ashamed and embarrassed to the point of suicide. I suspect he will be remembered as the ultimate in Thai incompetence, headless chicken and lame-duck. Highly entertaining to watch him, you couldn’t make this stuff up. Not so entertaining though for Eton and Oxford, who must be cringeing at how little they were able to teach the guy.

  3. Steve on December 13th, 2009 9.10 am

    I just feel bad for Nok. You often read about incidents like this where farang are targeted and this just goes to prove that the Thai police force are happy to take money from anyone’s pocket.

    It’s no wonder that no one ever wants to get the police involved in Thailand when it’s not absolutely necessary and it’s a shame that you can’t even turn to law enforcement to ummmm … enforce the laws.

    I wonder if the “informant” was at the card party and if they got a cut of the “fines”?

  4. Leosia on December 14th, 2009 11.28 am

    There are many gray areas such as this which are deliberately maintained as “illegal activities” or police regulated operations in order for them to continue making large amounts of money through fines, extortion and corruption. These include highway regulations which are made up “on the spot,” the illegal lottery, anything involving motorbike taxis, club and karaoke bar licenses, street-side bars, cancellation of work visas, selling driving licenses for 200 baht without the need for a test. The list is endless.

    It is so endemic and widely accepted in society that it provides proof that democracy and transparency is not something that Thai people want – despite talking a lot about it!

  5. Rich on December 14th, 2009 3.00 pm

    @Leosia:

    Agree completely. Thais are known and famous for talking the talk, but less well known for walking the walk. It is a principle that I have held for a long time, that a nation gets the government it is prepared to put with and therefore deserves.

    Thailand is no different – the people could change it but they choose not to because they are apathetic and only concerned with what concerns them directly today.

    They appear not to be aware that (as I saw somewhere else) an estimated 40% of the national budget disappears into a relatively few pockets.

    How they can possibly be unaware I don’t know, unless they habitually take comfort in the rectal view.

  6. Qualtrough on December 19th, 2009 9.41 pm

    Your friend’s wife must have been extremely naive not to know that playing cards for money is illegal in Thailand, particularly in a large group of people. You will find many similar laws in various jurisdictions in the USA, and I suspect many other countries. A stupid law, perhaps, but the police don’t enact the laws, they enforce them. Criticizing the police for enforcing laws is misdirected, the criticism should be directed at those who make the laws. As for the police demanding a 10,000 baht fine, yes that is corrupt. However, the fact that they were later fined by a court indicates that in the eyes of the law they were indeed guilty. Again, that is not the police making the judgment, but a legally constituted court. Back to the police, while corruption may be a bad thing overall, I think that many of us in the West wish we had the option of paying “extra” to avoid a night in jail or a police record, especially when they have us dead to rights, so to speak. It appears that in this case the police were offering them an option, which they declined, and to no ill effect. At least they had that option. There are myriad reasons to criticize the Thai police, whose record is indeed dismal, but this particular case strikes me as very weak.

    (BD: Still, even “convicted” by a remote court, there was no receipt/paper whatsoever …)

  7. stefan on December 19th, 2009 11.16 pm

    “Criticizing the police for enforcing laws is misdirectedi” shows the commenter is naive and has no idea that Thai laws are only enforced when it suits the local constabluary, furthermore comparing Thai police to any Western force is futile and shows more ignorance of the entrepraneurial activities of the Thai police.

  8. bosunj on December 20th, 2009 12.52 am

    “(…) comparing Thai police to any Western force is futile and shows more ignorance of the entrepraneurial activities of the Thai police.”

    You’re apparently unaware of the entrepreneurial activities of Duhmerican police who are aided by laws which allow them to keep property they sieze. You’re also apparently unaware of the activities of police on the Texas-Louisiana border where they have been scaming innocent motorists for years. These are just two examples. There are thousands that are out there doing the same thing across that country every hour. Police corruption is endemic world wide as is corruption on every level. In Thailand they’re much more up front about it is all. No, I don’t approve of it and generally hate most cops. My activities don’t place me in jeopardy either. Happy holidays.

  9. Ron on December 27th, 2009 2.53 pm

    Qualtrough …

    The point is the police tried to extort money. Later a judge via a video screen and no official document showing these people were ever even there and released is absurd. Everyone knows the police are scamming all the time and all levels.

    Recently I was at a shopping mall and saw a DVD place approached by two young cops in uniform. They took the guy to the side I actually saw him handing them money.

    Later I asked him what was going on. He said he paid them 3,000 baht a week to be able to continue selling via his little store in the mall.

    I asked about the other small shops selling DVD’s and other things all on the same floor. He said all of them paid 3,000 baht a week to these cops.

    I counted 23 small shops. Do the numbers.

    Now it is OK to say well you know these people are after all doing something illegal. But which of the two activities is the least conducive to creating a healthy, law-abiding society:

    1) The illegal DVD’s, or;

    2) The cops blackmailing them?

    besides that, I would think the police have more important things to be ding than taking payoffs for gary market DVD’s and harassing people for playing cards in their own homes.

    In fact, not only are they on the take but they are not carrying out their jobs, either. I wonder what crimes were committed unnoticed while these cops were busting card players or extorting money from the DVD sellers.

  10. Rich on December 28th, 2009 8.03 am

    Exactly right. The police (and the politicians, and the judges and the army and just about everyone else in Thailand) take money to do a job, and then take money from someone else not to do it.

    Make no mistake about it, the money filters its way up to those at the very top, there is no incentive whatever to stop it and public opprobrium, even international opprobrium is simply ignored.

    Make no mistake also the common belief is that that the Abhisit government is much more corrupt that the Thaksin government ever dreamed of being.

    Yet oddly, this is not the biggest problem in Thailand. IMHO, the biggest problem is the anarchy. Nobody is ever held accountable for anything and impunity rules supreme. From the bottom of Thai society to the top. Thai culture and society is based on impunity and fear, and as such is atrociously obnoxious.

    It isn’t an accident either, it is the same fear and impunity that drove most European societies until the people refused to put up with it any more. Thais are usually slow to wake up, and it seems to me that meaningful change will not be made until the ruling elites no longer have any kind of choice, and can no longer withstand the onslaught. It will require considerable bloodshed, and I believe that will start in 2010, and will accelerate dramatically with a certain person departing the scene.

  11. Thakseen on February 24th, 2010 8.56 pm

    I think the end to corruption starts with you … Never pay a bribe to get anything done quickly and there will be no corruption. The police in Thailand and elsewhere will only take a bribe only when YOU give it! So do the world a favor and don’t pay.

  12. Adam F. on February 26th, 2010 12.32 pm

    Thaksin, police corruption and bureaucratic corruption are different, a fact which should be blindingly obvious. The greedy bureaucrat doesn’t have the power to hold you in indefinite remand nor to shoot you dead without consequences.

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