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Corrupt Excise Officials at the Chong Mek Border Crossing to Laos
Thai prisons are supposedly horrible places. There is one next to us
here at the school and that's where this shot came from. The wall is
over 20 feet high I'm guessing. Maybe 25?
I've read a couple books here about it... Bangkok Hilton and another
one about an English woman that wanted to make a little extra cash
and take some drug, heroin I believe, on the plane across the border
and she spent many years in Thai and England prisons.
The Thai authorities are forgiving about many things. Drugs is not
one of them. Get caught with any amount of illegal substances on you
as a foreigner and you could possibly be a guest of the Thai
government for 20-40 years!
That being said there are many foreigners that come here and
continue to smoke marijuana as if they are immune to getting caught. I was playing ping-pong with some teacher friends from school and
someone lit up a bong right there in his living room. Apparently
this was a usual occurrence there but I wasn't aware. I haven't been
back since.
Once I was on a VISA run to Laos - a monthly run across the Thai
border to Laos so I could get another 30-day VISA on entry back into
Thailand. My friend and I had bought a case of Beer Laos each and a
bottle of American Whiskey each. It was our bi-monthly alcohol
purchase that we had done consistently for months. The rules for
importing alcohol into Thailand had changed recently but we had
asked the store owner what we could legally take across to Thailand.
She was very helpful and we knew her from past interactions. She was
the manager. Anyway, we were supposed to be fine with what we had.
We get across the border and are almost at our car when we see a guy
in pants and shirt standing by our car. He says, "Let me see the
alcohol you have". We show him, not knowing who he is. I ask him for
ID. He shows a tattered ID that could have been made by a high
school student.
He tells us we need to have 2000 baht ($50) USD to pay the fine for
bringing too much alcohol back into Thailand. I insist he go get some police or someone that I can believe.
He goes. We wait 20 minutes in the heat - My friend, his wife, and
myself. We're ready to just GO and we see him and 4 other guys
coming down the hill from the border checkpoint. All of them have
ID's that say "Thai Excise Official". Excise official? What's that?
We bitch. They listen. We bitch. They listen.
They threaten his Thai wife with smuggling charges. They take us to
the police station. I see underwear clad men standing in a room behind the porch. One is
being frisk searched and he's naked. The men are dirty, tired and
don't look happy. There are about 25 men in that small room.
They start threatening to put his wife in jail now. She'd have to
wait for a few weeks in jail until court date. Months?
We decide to pay the fine so we can get away from these clowns. They
know they're scamming us and yet the charade continues. I am a bit paranoid that they will plant some drugs on us or in the
car since we're pissing them off good now threatening to call the
embassy, prime minister and things.
We pay the fine and they grab 4 of our Beer Laos beers and we head
off.
We call the store from the phone number on the receipt and they tell
us they'll refund our fine to us!
They tell us these same excise officials routinely come and buy
10-20 cases of Beer Laos for illegal export back into Thailand.
Nice.
Such is Thailand.
Stay away from the police. Pay them to go away if need be. Just
DON'T get caught with illegal drugs in your pocket, car, sock, or
lungs.
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