Be wary of discarded cigarette ends at stations and airport tax-free shops in Thailand – officials are on the take and may demand large sums for trumped-up charges.

Anaesthetist Nurse Nils Georgsen has never smoked in his life – nonetheless officials at non-smoking Siam station demanded 10,000 baht (EUR 206) to release him, after accusing him of having being the owner of a cigarette butt lying on the platform.

“A railway official came by and pointed at a cigarette end on the platform,” says Georgsen who was escorted to the guard’s office and surrounded by station officers who demanded 10,000 baht to let him go.

“This was serious. They were very threatening. I tried to explain that I didn’t smoke. But there was no way out – they wanted money,” Georgsen says adding that he eventually managed to bargain the price down to 300 baht (EUR 6).

“Then I was allowed to go. That was the most important thing,” he says adding that he understands the reasons that give rise to the problem in that locals are poor and see rich tourists a mile off. “That does something to people,” he says.

Airport
Georgsen’s story comes a day after similar episodes have been reported in the tax-free area of Bangkok’s international airport. Here, one Dane reported having been demanded some 240,000 baht (EUR 4,900) on trumped-up shoplifting charges.

The Times of London has reported both the case of the unnamed Danish woman and that of Stephen Ingram, 49, and Xi Lin, 45, both technology professionals from Cambridge, who were detained by security guards as they went to board Qantas flight QF1 to London on the night of Saturday, April 25.

The couple were accused of taking a wallet from a duty free shop, were handed over to police and were held for five days against their will at a cheap motel until they had paid their ‘fine’.

Prosecutor
The couple were eventually released on an order from the local Thai prosecutor’s office which conceded there was no evidence against them.

According to The Times, 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 who admitted in a telephone interview with the newspaper that he had received cash and money transfers amounting to more than 390,000 baht (EUR 8,000) 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 is quoted as saying.