Thailand's Daily Crime Pill #13: Headlines are half the story.
And what about the rest? Well, that's where we step in.
Dear expats and readers,
This crime pill will be short and to the point.
I’d like to direct your attention to this article from Thai Examiner, Senior police officer arrested and charged linked with the illegal abduction of a Taiwanese man.
The story lays out an abduction plot involving the Thai police, former US Marines, and a Taiwanese businessman.
More about the story can be found in this accompanying article, Two Americans arrested over kidnapping linked with failed gloves deal and loss of ฿93 million.
I’ll give you a few moments to get up to speed on the story — good, are you back?
Now, I’ve held off writing about this story for two reasons:
For several months, I have been in personal contact with one of the detained people mentioned in the stories;
I want to tread lightly in other information that I’d want to reveal, which hasn’t been already.
Facts are facts — the work that the outfit on the ground was doing brushed up on the foul side of the law. And it wasn’t their first time doing so.
With this story, I’d only implore you to consider the possibility that the group may have done some good, though. Not the kind of good that gets praised in the magazines, shared on Facebook, and retweeted to the masses.
But the kind of good that has a heavy dose of grime and dirt mixed up with it. It’s not pure.
I do know one thing. This group solved some tough problems and dealt with some dirty dudes on the ground.
Your hands can get real dirty in Bangkok — hell, bloody even. Especially when going after big time thieves.
Let’s not fool ourselves about Thailand. For all the sabai sabai and creature comforts, there’s a great festering underbelly of crime. And at times it’s hard to tell who the good guys and who the bad guys are.
If I take a big step back, this story is a reminder, even for myself, to bring a skeptical eye to even the most salacious stories. Because the full truth so rarely sees the light of day.
I hate to be cryptic, but I’ll steal a line from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether that seems apropos:
“You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see…”
I’m obliged to keep my sources secure, but what I can do as a solid follow-up to this story is write about the glove scam crimes that have proliferated in Thailand over the past year.
The subject will be eye-opening for TCT readers. Expect that soon.
Speaking of bad business deals & crime…
I’ve recently launched a second true crime brand called The Main Streeter.
What can you expect with it?
The Main Streeter is a curated newsletter of true crime business stories from around the world that we bet you missed.
From Main Street to Wall Street, London to Hong Kong. Fraud, narco-networks, murder, crypto-scams, ransomware and more.
The Main Streeter keeps tabs on the most interesting business crime stories out there with follow-up and analysis. We do the dirty work of finding the numbers behind the crime. And we we follow the lucrative roads that money walks in the business of crime to answer questions such as:
Who gets a cut of that ransomware payoff?
How much profit is there in South East Asia meth production?
What’s it cost to get somebody whacked in your country?
Where are the blind-spots in your business that criminals will exploit in the future?
Five days a week The Main Streeter puts out Snuffed & Purloined, with a special deep-dive weekend edition on a story of interest.
This publication is, and will always remain, free — you can subscribe by clicking here for the first article and enter your email.
That’s all for today…
Until tomorrow’s Crime Pill, stay safe out there everybody.
- True Crime Thailand
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