Two American women held in Thailand after allegedly caught with fake US dollars

[Crash999]

10 hours ago, FritsSikkink said:

After worki for a big news company for 17 years: No they don't check anything. Story is a hoax, never been in the news but outside Thailand.

Does Chiang Mai have the same level of coverage of crime that we see in other places? The reason so much Pattaya crime is made public is because there are multiple competing English language media outlets there all scrambling for content. 

[sn1per]

On 18/03/2018 at 8:24 AM, smx1313 said:

What Thailand are you in? The Thailand that I've spent many years in, exchanged USA/Euro/India currency countless times, never did any of that! Hell, usually there is only 1 cashier in the booth and they don't take any of the the steps you laid out.

They count it, feel it, exam it visually in one motion. Done. 

I am in the Koh Samui part of Thailand, the way I have explained it is a regular occurrence in the majority of exchange booths there. I know in some exchanges in Pattaya they are not so particular but in Koh Samui, you virtually have to iron your banknotes before they will change them.

[scorecard]

9 hours ago, Henrik Andersen said:

Sometimes I think you never been in Thailand because if this story was true it will be over the news in Thailand and police will be happy to point fingers 

Sorry for interrupting say this but I really think you in on this scam and I live here in Thailand so I know how the system works and all my Thai friends say too THIS IS A SCAM 

 

What happens in the USA is irrelevant.

 

Ultimately when you visit another county you accept that you are subject to the laws, attitudes and behaviors of the country your visiting, not rocket science.

 

Actually is the USA a perfect example of law and law enforcement? NO!

 

 

[scorecard]

11 hours ago, Makara said:

Thank you for being reasonable in your response and not throwing daggers. I have asked about the lack of media presence from a friend who is from Thailand, among other people and from my understanding there can be reasons for the lack of media exposure. It seems a lot of things revolve around money and pay-offs all across the board. As an American this is beyond foreign to me, and call me naive or whatever but I was shocked to hear from several sources how things happen over there when faced with these kind of issues and or similar issues. It is pretty cut and dry here when you get in trouble--commit an act--go to jail--depending on crime bail set (usually extremely high so you can't pay it) then you stay in jail until court. Then it is left to the lawyers to paint the story to the judge and juror. There it sounds like a lot of hoops to jump through, money involved from all directions, applied stress and pressure to try and break you down further (especially as a foreigner). Long drawn out process on purpose. Then add being a foreigner and not knowing who to believe or trust. I have heard the word pay-off umpteen-million times when people give me inside view as to what could be happening. I have also heard that the authorities in this situation have been extremely nice. But all in all it sounds like a very confusing process. It has also been explained to me that not every foreigner situation gets media. This seems to be one of them. IDK maybe I am wrong and what everyone has said to me is wrong. There is a lot of pieces to this puzzle--I get that--and it is not up to me to share any and all info I have. I won't do that. It is frustrating to me to know the back side of the story and watch all these people only make assumptions. But thanks for being kind. 

 

You ever heard of paragraph breaks?

 

It's very likely more people would read posts with paragraph breaks, compared to one giant paragraph.

 

 

[jenny2017]

8 hours ago, Makara said:

So laughable. I don't care what your friends say and I don't care what you and a few others say. You're included in the ones who are quite rude and have a problem carrying on a decent conversation. I bet even if I posted some sort of document that shows an arrest record you would say, that is a fake document. ???? This is a scam. Even when a person on here that lived in Thailand found out they were arrested some of the posters called them a liar and a scammer too. Y'all are ridiculous. 

 

The only person who seems to be ridiculous is you, TROLL. ( Emergencies)

Edited March 19, 2018 by jenny2017

[sn1per]

11 minutes ago, scorecard said:

 

You ever heard of paragraph breaks?

 

It's very likely more people would read posts with paragraph breaks, compared to one giant paragraph.

 

 

Did you read it?

[scorecard]

11 minutes ago, sn1per said:

Did you read it?

 

With such long pieces with no breaks I tend to scan with less and less attempt to fully understand and my guess is that many people do the same.

[Mattd]

13 hours ago, Makara said:

I will also say this...do people really think that they took wet and dirty bills in to exchange? I mean common sense tells me that any person who found money and thought it was real would dry them and clean them off regardless if they were going to turn them in or not!

I'm sorry, but doesn't this statement make the whole story even more unbelievable then?

Several people have stated that this Ghost money is poorly copied and printed on cheap paper, if the girls were to have done as you suggest above, then surely they would have been 100% aware that it was fake before they tried to exchange it, from what has been said about this ghost money, even a 5 year old child would have been able to determine that it was fake, even more so if American and have been handling USD all of their lives.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Mattd

[FritsSikkink]

1 hour ago, Crash999 said:

Does Chiang Mai have the same level of coverage of crime that we see in other places? The reason so much Pattaya crime is made public is because there are multiple competing English language media outlets there all scrambling for content. 

http://chiangmai-mail.com/

http://www.chiangmaicitylife.com/

 

Edited March 19, 2018 by FritsSikkink

[smx1313]

9 minutes ago, scorecard said:

With such long pieces with no breaks I tend to scan with less and less attempt to fully understand and my guess is that many people do the same.

Yeah, have to agree with you.

Due to being dyslexic those big blocks of words look like alphabet soup to me.

[KneeDeep]

On 17/03/2018 at 7:05 PM, Makara said:

The admin has made it clear stating personal information on this forum is against the rules. People are asking for proof which you have got on this thread. Bangkok Post had a small article on this, Coconuts wrote an article, 2 US articles, a person on this forum got information from the police of their arrest, I know one of the women arrested, but none of that is good enough for some of you. Because it is not plastered on every media station or paper there you claim it is fishy or a scam. Yet somehow you guys want personal information such as arrest record, proof of lawyer, proof of paid bail, date of next court date, if the gofundme money has been withdrawn and what the gofundme money is being spent on, where they are staying and a bunch of other things asking for proof which the admin clearly stated is against the rules! And really is not okay to post on a public forum. We have gave proof, articles have been written, people on here investigated and came up with that they indeed where arrested, yet, YET, none of that is good enough. 

 

Why are you insisting on reposting as confirmation, articles that have been proved to have been based on the mtdemocrat and GFM?

It just reveals the paucity of your arguments and makes you look just as 'shady' as the individuals featured in the topic.

 

You haven't convinced anyone and have insisted that you have given up trying to do so. But here you are still, post after post. Dodgy.

[OldSiamHand]

On 3/18/2018 at 12:49 AM, Makara said:

For the love of god... It's not fake. They tried to turn in money they found, and found out it was fake at the exchanger and got arrested.

......

How is this so hard to believe? Literally how?

For one, because it was originally stated they tried to convert money they found, not 'turn in', which suggests they were giving it to a lost and found so that the rightful owner could claim it.

[realenglish1]

The report alludes to how much money they tried to exchange 

Why is that? This should be part of the report

[smx1313]

9 hours ago, OldSiamHand said:

For one, because it was originally stated they tried to convert money they found, not 'turn in', which suggests they were giving it to a lost and found so that the rightful owner could claim it.

That might've just been a grammatical typo. They've said "exchange/convert" 100's of times, this time using a different word to say the same thing.

Nobody would "turn in" lost money at a exchange and it's never been alleged that the women were simply trying to return it.

The core of the story is they admit that they tried to convert the counterfeit money.

[rebo]

8 hours ago, smx1313 said:

That might've just been a grammatical typo.

Could also have been an unwitting  attempt to manipulate ...

[sanemax]

8 hours ago, smx1313 said:

That might've just been a grammatical typo. They've said "exchange/convert" 100's of times, this time using a different word to say the same thing.

Nobody would "turn in" lost money at a exchange and it's never been alleged that the women were simply trying to return it.

The core of the story is they admit that they tried to convert the counterfeit money.

The story changes all the time though .

[OldSiamHand]

15 minutes ago, rebo said:

Could also have been an unwitting  attempt to manipulate ...

I tend to agree, given the poster's very favorable views of the "victims".

[smx1313]

2 hours ago, sanemax said:

The story changes all the time though

When the story 1st broke there were a lot of social media posts by friends and family stating wildly different scenarios. It seemed that nearly all of them didn't know what happened and came to their own conclusions. Things like police planting the money, a bad guy tricking them into smuggling it, as well as getting the city and country wrong, all sorts of stuff.

That's not unusual, people tend to do that, fog of war, playing telephone. A mole hill becomes a mountain.

 

The one person on this thread defending the women has been consistent with the "story", while also acknowledging there are some things that don't add up.

 

Their defense is simple, based on knowledge of the people, friends and family involved, the women were arrested.

They make this defense while addressing an endless line of questioning here, many of the questions and answers are based on conflicting theories and "facts".  A muddy road in dry season? Watered by locals to keep dust down. Calls to the police station getting different responses.

The defender admits to not knowing all the details but trys to address theories with maybes and possibilities.

So it makes sense that the story changes depending on the question asked.

However, the core statements have stayed the same.

 

Is this a big Go Fund scam? Could be. I tend to think they did get arrested. Did they know the money was fake? I tend to think they did.

[Crash999]

1 hour ago, smx1313 said:

Is this a big Go Fund scam? Could be. I tend to think they did get arrested. Did they know the money was fake? I tend to think they did.

I agree with you.
 

If they knew the money was fake it explains some of their actions. That they tried to use it in Thailand instead of right away in Cambodia. Then panic when they realize that they're actually in a lot of trouble which resulted in a mad scramble to explain away the situation and various conflicting stories. Finally reeled in by a lawyer who cleaned up the situation from a PR perspective.

 

[AGareth2]

there never was an arrest

plain scam to fleece kind hearted people

[HooHaa]

On 2/27/2018 at 3:25 PM, jackdd said:

Maybe because as a person that uses USD every day at home it should be quite easy to notice that a dollar bill which is most likely printed on normal paper and has the word copy written on it is not original

And they are never innocent, if they really just found it as they said, they wanted to keep another persons property

i find a wallet with a few hundred bucks in it i will try return it.

i find a stack of cash, with no distinguishing features on holiday, you better believe im having it.

 

[AGareth2]

2 minutes ago, HooHaa said:

i find a wallet with a few hundred bucks in it i will try return it.

i find a stack of cash, with no distinguishing features on holiday, you better believe im having it.

 

from the bank of the dead?

you having a laugh?

[varun]

The whole cock-and-bull story about 'finding' the USD stinks to high heaven.

 

Here's what I think happened:

 

The two were living it up in CM for the first week and when their funds started to dwindle,

they decided to test the waters and successfully exchanged some counterfeit USD - this was the gateway transaction.

 

Most likely a small amount at first (less than $50)

 

Not all exchange outlets are diligent enough to check for counterfeit notes, 

and many would probably not bother for small amounts esp.

those with a less-than-vigilant cashier spending all day staring at her phone!

Emboldened, they decided to try their luck a second time with the whole stack of fake notes,

and everything went belly up.

 

The key point is I think they brought counterfeit currency into the Kingdom as a backup reserve, 

assuming that they could get away with it.

[HooHaa]

9 minutes ago, AGareth2 said:

from the bank of the dead?

you having a laugh?

no, that part is just plain stupid. 

 

but funny.

 

im just addressing folk who insist they should have turned it in if they believed it was real.

as if there is somewhere trustworthy enough to hold it until an owner came to claim it.

 

and having lost a stack of cash, who in asia would expect to get it back? 

[rebo]

So it seems time becomes ripe for a survey ;-)

a.: The entire story is a total scam. The initiators want to collect as much as possible to enrich themselves. Nobody was ever accused/arrested.
b.: The girls found - whereever, however - these notes, didn't recognize them as counterfeit and did'nt hand them in to L&F. Planned to use the 1'000 $ for their own purpose. They where arrested while trying to exchange them and on bail now, waiting for their trial.
c.: They found - however - these notes, recognized them as fake but tried to exchange them in another country thinking they wouldn't be identified as fakes over there. Arrested and on bail they are waiting for the court hearing.
My own vote goes for c..

[jerry921]

Actually I'd say it's ripe for an update with additional facts.

[rebo]

9 minutes ago, jerry921 said:

Actually I'd say it's ripe for an update with additional facts.

Nooooo! Ol' killjoy! That would mean a too soon end to this entertaining exchange of imaginations ...

Edited March 20, 2018 by rebo

[jenny2017]

26 minutes ago, jerry921 said:

Actually I'd say it's ripe for an update with additional facts.

The only facts you might see are that both women will soon show up in other countries, causing other, or the same troubles, which might end up in a new GoFundMe page, eventually with a new story and new "victims".

 

They were NEVER arrested in Thailand, they were never on bail, but somebody was lying a lot about the whole story, just to get cash from GFM. ( no proof of an arrest on Thai media, or elsewhere, no press conference of Thai cops, no nothing);

 

  The only available information came from their GoFundMe page, but even these stories contradict each other. One day they found the fake money in Cambodia, then in CM, and I'm pretty sure that there's another version, depending on what people want to hear. 

 

   The one women's bf had done all the lies and is now here on this forum and tells people always the same stories. But would he come with some proof, more people might send money on the GFM page, which seems to be their only goal. But he can't show proof of something that never happened.

 

I tend to believe that one poster here is one of the :arrested women on bail". Reading her texts shows that she doesn't seem to be the smartest one on this planet, or perhaps only some screws loose. 

 

   Sad is that too many people just don't get the scam. Wouldn't you see a follow up by now? Wouldn't you hear of expats who live in CM if there's really something going on?

 

The whole story is as fake as so many noses and tits in this country. 

 

  In short. If the bs story would be true there'd be newspaper articles in Thai and in English. I feel sorry for these people who gave them cash and fed the trolls. 

 

  

 

   

Edited March 20, 2018 by jenny2017

[bkk6060]

Look at their eyes.,,,

Would you date these girls??

[rebo]

4 minutes ago, jenny2017 said:

The whole story is as fake as so many tits in this country. 

Say "noses", O.K.?!