Philippine women arrested in Pattaya collecting money for bogus charity

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Philippine women arrested in Pattaya collecting money for bogus charity

 

Image: WeLovePattaya

 

Three Philippine women have been arrested in Pattaya after being caught collecting money for a non existent charity.

 

Police on Wednesday announced the arrest of Belinda Austria Toledo, 55, Jessica Bayutas Ortega, 50 and Ruthie Espina Babila, 38, who had been collecting money from tourists in central Pattaya for a charity named Children's Joy Foundation.

 

Police seized 5,690 baht in cash, along with 10 books listing the names of people who had donated.

 

Police said the women told them they had been pulling the same scam at other locations throughout Thailand for more than one year.

 

A check of their passports revealed the women had been staying in Thailand on tourist visas and did not have the required documentation neededa to collect money on behalf of a charity.

 

Pattaya police chief Pol Col Apichai Krobph said the women would be charged with collecting money without permission and not having a work permit.

 

Source: We Love Pattaya 58

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2019-01-16

 

[snoop1130]

Filipinos arrested for raising cash for poor children

By The Nation

 

 

Three Filipino women were arrested for soliciting donations for a foundation for poor children in the Philippines without a permit.

 

Pattaya police chief Col Apichai Krobphet said the three women were arrested after they were found soliciting donations at bars and restaurants in Pattaya.

 

They were identified as Belinda Austria Toledo, 55, Jessica Bayutas Ortega, 50, and Ruthie Espina Babila, 38.

 

They were found begging for support for the Manila-based Children's Joy Foundation.

 

Police seized 10 books with donors' names, a guitar and Bt5,690 worth of donations.

 

They were arrested while soliciting donations on the Phet Trakul Road in Tambon Nong Plue of Chon Buri's Bang Lamung district.

 

Apichai said the three entered Thailand as tourists and had no permit for soliciting donations. He said the three have been living in Thailand for over a year.

 

They were charged with soliciting donations without a permit and being aliens working without a permit.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30362369

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-1-16

[Henrik Andersen]

This job (scam) are only for Thai people 

Good they got caught now tourists safe again ????????????

[damascase]

Nowhere in the actual text it says ‘bogus’, like in the headlines. Neither have they been charged for collecting donations for a bogus charity, so I assume that hasn’t been investigated.

[Lamkyong]

there are a few on youtube  doing similar,M/OP   different but leading  TO THE SAME END SCAM

[KittenKong]

The charity appears to exist.

https://childrensjoyfoundation.org/

 

Maybe the Thai police just found it hard to believe that anyone could actually be collecting for a real charity?

[mikebell]

Would you give money to these women?  I bet the donor books are full of Thai names trying to make merit.

[LazySlipper]

Maybe I am chai rai... but I never give to charities. Charity begins at home as far as I am concerned. Even back home charities are a scam. I don't get it that people who run charities actually work for salaries and very often these are six figure salaries.

[Emster23]

Foolish women. They should have said they were collecting for one religion or the other. No one goes after those collecting for a bogus god.

[sammieuk1]

They do like to pillory bottom feeders as it gives the biggest sharks more room to swim freely ????

[White Christmas13]

And which women is 38?

[WildBillHiccup]

This story gave me a sense of Déjà vu .. .. ..

About 4 or 5 years ago I was sat on a bar stool at the top of soi Diana (Pattaya) not far from 2nd road and a smartly dressed lady (she looked like an office worker) walked in. She had a pleasant smile and was engaging foreigners in conversation. Obviously she was "selling" something. Curiosity had me waiting for my turn. Eventually she got around to me and handed me a crumpled glossy piece of paper with a photo of a group of raggedy dressed school aged kids on it. The kids looked more rural than city kids. The paper was 1/2 an A4 in size, very creased and dog eared. 

"Help the orphaned children, sir?"

I returned the paper and big mouth (me) politely asked if I may ask her a question.

I asked why was it that she was only asking foreigners for donations - and not Thais?

Next, her face turned to stone and she morphed into a snake. She hissed through gritted teeth: "You are very clever. If I were you I would be very, very careful". She'd changed from little Ms. Sugar & Spice into a very nasty piece of work. Her English was quite good, too - like she came from the Philippines? It was only then that I wondered if perhaps she had a 'minder' (or two) waiting for her outside? Have to say that she spooked me!

It was afternoon (daylight) perhaps I was lucky? I will never know!  

 

[KittenKong]

27 minutes ago, WildBillHiccup said:

Next, her face turned to stone and she morphed into a snake. She hissed through gritted teeth: "You are very clever. If I were you I would be very, very careful". She'd changed from little Ms. Sugar & Spice into a very nasty piece of work.

Thai cheats really dont like it when you catch them out.

[hobobo]

16 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Police seized 10 books with donors' names, a guitar and Bt5,690 worth of donations.

I am baffled by the seized guitar. I thought that after the Hare Krishnas attempts to lure innocent victims part with their cash during the 1970s, guitars were banned from all forms of fundraising.

[Prairieboy]

I just tell them to f*** off - if I wish to donate to a charity I will do so through appropriate channels not give money to some street person who wonders into the shop, or bar.

[Ulic]

I have seen this same scam going on for years. Philippinas speak much better English than the Thai girls. They don't ask for small change either. 1,000 baht and more when I first experienced this scam in Phuket. That said almost all NGO's are scams with as little as 2% of monies raised getting to those in need. 98% going to salaries and other costs. A few months in jail, deport and blacklist gets my vote.

[scorecard]

Some members might remember the big organized 'boy scout' scam decades back:

 

- All planned and organized

- Mostly late teens boys confronting mostly westerners in numerous locations. At Pantip Plaza, on Silom Road and lots more locations.

- In boy scouts uniform with lots of badges

- All with a hard backed notebook (book to write in, not a computer)

- First several pages lots of details and photos of world scouts jamboree coming soon in e.g. Canada 

- Boy then opens next pages, all indicating (one per page) donations already collected for the bot to attend the scout jamboree in e.g. Canada.

- Boy now turns to another page which asks the foreigner to give a donation to help the boy to attend

- But if the foreigner writes say: 20Baht, 50Baht, 100Baht, the boy now quickly opens another page saying that the minimum donation is 1,000Baht.

- Some foreigners withdraw, many don't know what to do so they give the boy 1,000Baht. 

- This continued for years until the police investigated it and discover total scam, and closed it down.  

 

 

[oldrunner]

I only give to cute little girls selling Chewing Gum.

[bbi1]

5 hours ago, White Christmas13 said:

And which women is 38?

They all look like grandmas, that's for sure! Must be a fake passport.

 

3 hours ago, Prairieboy said:

I just tell them to f*** off - if I wish to donate to a charity I will do so through appropriate channels not give money to some street person who wonders into the shop, or bar.

Why would you give to charities? They're all a bunch of scams anyway. 95% or more of the money given to charities are used for the executives to live lavish lifestyles.

[balo]

I have been confronted by Filipinos for many years, both in Bangkok and Pattaya. It's the English accent that gives them away. 

 

Good to see they are able to catch some of them , they should try to do some honest work instead.

 

 

 

[HaleySabai]

A few years ago in ChiangMai a couple of cutie Pinoys waltzed into the restaurant smiling and playing guitar asking for money to "help the children"....my wife(Thai) couldn't believe how brazen their tactics were.

And again in a city in Canada an Indonesian women with a mini-gamelan wondering around the downtown core asking to "help the children".....weird.

[jacko45k]

22 hours ago, mikebell said:

Would you give money to these women?  I bet the donor books are full of Thai names trying to make merit.

Personally I don't give money to anyone collecting in the streets, even when in the UK. Might drop my change in a collection container chained to the bar in Wetherspoons. Just feel the likelihood is they are bogus, and even those that are not only a small portion gets to the needy.