Bangkok King Power Duty Free thieves

http://teakdoor.com British couple fights Bangkok airport extortionists
Two tourists were held by an airport gang until they paid up £8,000
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 prosecutors 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 Thailands tourist police (motto: To serve and to protect).
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 its 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 bail. The police kept the couples 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.




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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 Rathnayakas 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 dont get paid to do this. All the embassies know me.
Officials at the Danish embassy confirmed that a Danish woman fell into Rathnayakas hands about two weeks ago and was allowed to leave Thailand only after handing over more than £4,500.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Bangkok
• Kings
• Power
• Duty
• Free
• British
• couple
• extortion

[JomtienCafe]

If you are caught shoplifting in Thailand you get the choice of going to court which can take several months, or, negotiating a *fine* with the store you shoplifted from, they negotiated the *fine*.

[aidgebo]

@remuskl yeah she from main land china eating dog and cat she need money to support her family even hs is hooker of old british man already

[remuskl]

ya but that lady is Chinese isn't she?

[stolennimbus]

I watched the clip several times, it looks to me that the woman in the clip shoplifted the wallet. At 0:24 she took the wallet and placed it on the back counter, then the man walk back and blocked the line of sight and at 0:28 she placed the wallet in her handbag. Looks to me the two are working together.

[1982FMJ]

its no different than the big corporations in the uk that falsly accuse peopel of shoplifting and not allow them to leave the store and assault innocent customers. THe police always grovel to the corporations. this happens everyday in the uk somewhere but nobody makes anything of it. There is a simple solution and that is do not shop in corporate stores and buy youre food from farms

[bestantonio]

7.000 for a fuking wallet? thay people mao ting tong mak maa

[bestantonio]

7.000 for a fuking wallet? thay people ting tong mak maa

[stupidjunk878]

Dirty Thai scammers. They always pull fake shit like this to scam innocent tourists. Customs officers, police, even the army are at it. No wonder noone wants to go to Thailan any more, except dirty paedophile british sexpats.

[lobsterlab]

joey7286 - do some research into the case before damning a whole country. Read about the royal thai police and the king power scam at the airport. It really is a stupid and racist remark.

[joey7286]

Brits are the worst motherfuckers on the planet

[aguada21]

@ianpafc Brits: thieves that think they can go around the world stealing and get away with it? Is that a fair assessment based on your way of thinking?