Do not buy Duty Free in Thailand
Earlier I wrote about possible corruption at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport. A letter to the editor of the Bangkok Post claimed that rogue police were extorting money from passengers in the duty free section. This letter claimed that a shop employee and the police were falsely accusing passengers of theft and then intimidating them into paying large sums of money to avoid imprisonment. Once the bribe was paid, the writer claimed, the poor tourists were then shipped-off home.
I expressed some doubts that this story was completely true. I was wrong. There is indeed a gang of shop employees and policemen working this exact extortion racket at the airport. These policemen are interrogating innocent people and holding them in the cells for lengthy periods of time in an attempt to extract cash from them. That this is so has been confirmed by a number of stories in newspapers, blogs, and the BBC's website.
And, 'At least one European country has warned its citizens not to shop in the duty-free area of Suvarnabhumi at all,' reports the Bangkok Post.
The message is now simple and clear: do not buy duty free goods at Thai airports- the risk is just not worth it.
Meanwhile the number of tourists visiting Thailand over the last year has fallen by 22%. I wonder why?
No comments:
Post a Comment