/ 23 August 2006

Thailand’s smile hides multitude of sins

To the millions of holidaymakers who flock there every year, Thailand is the ”Land of Smiles”, a picture-postcard paradise of white-sand beaches, tropical sun and exotic eastern charm.

But behind the relentlessly promoted tourist image lies a darker reality in which legendary hospitality also extends to less savoury visitors — from misfits and murderers, to perverts and paedophiles from across the globe.

John Mark Karr, the 41-year-old American accused of murdering child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, was just one of the thousands of foreigners with shady pasts enjoying the benefits of lax border controls and a corrupt police force.

Karr is now being questioned in the United States as to his possible involvement, but many believe his bizarre claims may amount to nothing.

”People like him are dangerous,” said Immigration Police chief Suwat Tumroungsiskul after Karr’s arrest last week in Bangkok, where he had found work as a primary school teacher despite a US charge in 2001 for possessing child pornography. ”We have criminals from all over the world running away from their home countries to look for teaching jobs in Thailand,” Suwat said.

With official statistics on the extent of the problem hard to come by, crime reports in Thai papers reveal the tip of the iceberg — the very few who fall foul of the law.

This month, an Australian paedophile was arrested near the Cambodian border. Before that, it was a Swiss national.

Other recent cases have involved a Danish biker gang busted for extortion, a Dutch underworld kingpin shot dead, a German wanted for a European security van heist and a Briton for murdering his fianceé by running her over with a car.

Costa del Crime

Towns such Pattaya on the eastern seaboard or the south-west island of Phuket are fast becoming Asia’s ”Costa del Crime” — the nickname given in the 1980s to the Spanish Costa del Sol due to the presence of many high-profile British fugitives.

Drawn from as far afield as Western Europe, Russia and China by the widespread availability of false documents, as well as cheap sex and beer, such mafias exist in part because police look the other way if the price is right.

”In general, we have a problem with the police going back to the Cold War, when they could do what they wanted in the fight against communism,” said Pasuk Phongpaichit, author of Guns, Girls, Gambling, Ganja, a book that lifts the lid on Thailand’s seamy side.

”We have never cleaned up the corruption problem inside the police. A lot of countries go through a cleaning process from time to time, but we haven’t really got down to that,” she said.

Although Thailand’s reputation as sex capital of south-east Asia dates back to the era of the Vietnam War and US soldiers seeking ”rest and recreation”, organised international crime is a more recent arrival.

With the economic boom of the early 1990s came an explosion in the number of foreign tourists — around 12-million come each year now — who provide ample cover for crooks either wanting to lie low or set up shop under a tropical sun.

”It’s very simple. This is a nice place to be and they like it as much as the rest of us,” said Jens Toettrup, a police officer at the Danish embassy in Bangkok, who encouraged Thai police in the motorcycle gang bust.

”If you think the meaning of life is riding a bike with a black-haired girl on the back and having a cheap beer, then this is definitely the place to be.” – Reuters