Australian Jailed For Life In Thailand

[ginny]

WHY DO WE ALWAYS CONCENTRATE ON THE MULES AND NEVER TRY TO FIND THE REAL CRIMINALS THAT CREATE THIS TRADE IN THE FIRST PLACE. COULD IT BE GOVERNMENTS REALLY DON'T WANT TO FIND OUT BECAUSE THEN THEY WOULD LOSE OUT ON THEIR CUT OF THE PROFITS?

MAYBE WE SHOULD GIVE INCENTIVES TO MULES TO RAT OUT THEIR SOURSE AND THEN WORK UP THE CHAIN RATTING OUT EACH SOURSE UNTIL WE GET THE BIG WIGS BEHIND ANY CRIMINAL TRADE.

YA! YOU SAY IN OUR DREAMS!! UNTIL WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT THESE POOR SLOBS WILL TAKE THE RISKS AND PAY THE PRICE WHILE THE REAL CRIMS FROM THESE TRADES STILL LAP UP THEIR LIFE OF LUXURY. SHAME ON ALL GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD THEY CREATE THESE SLAVES BY MAKING US ALL CONSUMERS WANTING MORE AND MORE!!

[Wombat6]

With a life sentence there is always the chance of a pardon 10 - 15 years down the track.

The poor individuals who overdose and die from the drugs these people carry do not get a pardon.

[HydeParke]

Australian jailed for life in Thailand

Andrew Hood pleaded guilty to the crime.

(Reuters: Sukree Sukplang, file photo)

BANGKOK: -- An Australian man who confessed to trying to smuggle three kilograms of heroin out of Thailand has been sentenced to life in jail.

Police arrested Andrew Hood, 37, in early December last year as he tried to leave Bangkok airport for Sydney.

During Hood's trial earlier this month, two police officers gave evidence and showed photographs of a number of packages taped to his stomach and legs.

The packages contained heroin worth about $500,000.

When he was first detained, Hood told reporters he attempted to smuggle the drugs for the money.

Hood's feet were chained as he stood in the court as the verdict was read.

The judge told him he was due a death sentence, but his confession meant he was given a jail term instead.

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

Thai authorities have issued an arrest warrant for the 34-year-old Australian who was with Hood at the time he was arrested, but who escaped.

-- abc.net.au 2009-08-05

[George4]

A death sentence possible for carrying heroin ?

That is madness compared to the sentences for other crimes

which take lives directly like murder and arson.

Except for selling to a minor, drugs should be legal with the personal consequences

of use the responsibility of the user just as it is for alcohol & tobacco.

But the politicians do not want to give up their gravy train;

arrests, prosecution, prisons, parole monitoring, and graft/payoffs.

Very discouraging thinking about how it is right now.

Hopefully, the future will be more enlightened.

I realise you are saying "except for selling to a minor" but do you think this guy or any other mule

has any control over where drugs end up? Or do they even care?

What you are suggesting is impossible and would have a problem already spiraling out of control become even worse.

r

That aside this guy if he has any kind of record at home desreves life for stupitity.

I was watching a documentary the other day about 2 women and a man serving life here for the same thing.

How did they catch them? The Aussie police contacted the Thai police and told them they were known users and

could they keep an eye out for them. They let them into the country and flagged them and all they had to do was

wait until they were leaving.

The problem here is massive. I swear by coincidence, only last night I picked up a girl who you would have thought

butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

A real Angelina, well mannered, 22 year old, forever smiling, body to die for who gets a call while in my company.

Turns out her friend has some Ice (Whatever drug that is?) and wants to meet her to have a fix. Your's truly got rid as quick

as a flash even if him downstairs didn't want to.

Now she's <deleted> and she doesn't even know it yet and that's because some scumbag like this guy supplies this crap to young girls.

There's no forgiveness, no it's only for me crap. The rule is don't! end of story. Best advise here is if you even hear the word yaba get outta there

I'm not a prude and have no personal onjections to guys getting Bob Marley stoned back home but stuff that hard <deleted> for a game of soldiers.

As far as life in prison is concerned I think the Thais in a sense have that wrong. This guy will be lucky to survive without going mad. 5 Years they reckon and a big percentage are in cloud cukoo land.

I don't know anything about this guy but I reckon after 5-7 years in a Thai Jail and deported, unless your a Ted Bundy and you would never comit a crime again. The problem then is would the deterent be enough to stop others? I sincerely doubt it. 5 years and castration would though )

Everyone knows the law here and if you break it you know what's going to happen.......simple as

[Screws]

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

I suppose he would have preferred the death sentence.

Can we get a petition going for a death sentence?? We could probably get 50,000,000 signatures easily.

Absolutely. And more so with recent events in Oz.

Or let the Screaming Jesii pay the tab on incarceration 'for the term of his natural life' and provide an indemnity to society that he will do no further harm.

I remember my Grandmother sending off donations to Amnesty International in the sixties. Then it was all about political prisoners. Now it has been hijacked by the 'no death penalty' mob.

She would turn in her grave.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Screws

[1927]

What a donkey !

thats all i can really say ..... thrown his life away

[reallyok]

Hooray for the guy who escaped the clutches of these Thai cop maniacs with their idiotic war on drugs.

----------------

We're Losing the Drug War Because Prohibition Never Works

By Hodding Carter III.

this is by far one of the best articles I read on the subject. Yes drug kills and the idiot who was carrying it should be prosecuted, but maybe we are creating the system that entertains this. With this guy, we have only caught an idiot who lost the plot when he became himself a victim and the system we have in place pushed him later on to become a mule to feed his addiction, but we have not stopped the real criminals organising it at a higher level, and we won't be able to touch them.

the result, a lost family in Australia, or a least a young girl who will suffer from it, a guy who was too stupid to see what he was doing and now will have the time to regret it, a terrible cost to all, family, friends, state and tax payers, and a bunch of morons who enjoy the fact that this guy is going to suffer... what a positive outcome...

I am sure there is better than this to be done, informing potential users of the risks has probably a greater chance of success, and let those who ignore the warning suffer from it, like those who still smoke today...

I wonder if amongst those who wish him to die in jail, some do smoke? Shouldn't they get a life sentence for poisoning the atmosphere and making smoking look good and perfectly acceptable in front of young kids who as a result might pick up the habit... aren't they contributing to kill more people that way? Yes certainly but it is legal...

flg

To be perfectly honest, i really doubt if he cared a "rats ass" about his daughter in oz. But thought that it would pull some heart strings and help him in his defence. The bastard deserves what he gets as i have seen the damage and heartbreak that low life like him can cause by bringing it into the country.

I dont care a dam_n at what level he operates, they are all scum and should all be given the same treatment. Lets stop all this b/s about " he was only a poor mule" No one, having been caught 'redhanded' should be given a reprieve.

Eliminate them !

[tjansen]

Hooray for the guy who escaped the clutches of these Thai cop maniacs with their idiotic war on drugs.

----------------

We're Losing the Drug War Because Prohibition Never Works

By Hodding Carter III.

There is clearly no point in beating a dead horse, whether you are a politician or a columnist, but sometimes you have to do it just the same, if only for the record. So, for the record, here's another attempt to argue that a majority of the American people and their elected representatives can be and are wrong about the way they have chosen to wage the "war against drugs." Prohibition can't work, won't work and has never worked, but it can and does have monumentally costly effects on the criminal justice system and on the integrity of government at every level.

Experience should be the best teacher, and my experience with prohibition is a little more recent than most Americans for whom the "noble experiment" ended with repeal in 1933. In my home state of Mississippi, it lasted for an additional 33 years, and for all those years it was a truism that the drinkers had their liquor, the preachers had their prohibition and the sheriffs made the money. Al Capone would have been proud of the latitude that bootleggers were able to buy with their payoffs of constables, deputies, police chiefs and sheriffs across the state.

But as a first-rate series in the New York Times made clear early last year, Mississippi's prohibition-era corruption (and Chicago's before that) was penny ante stuff compared with what is happening in the U.S. today. From Brooklyn police precincts to Miami's police stations to rural Georgia courthouses, big drug money is purchasing major breakdowns in law enforcement. Sheriffs, other policemen and now judges are being bought up by the gross. But that money, with the net profits for the drug traffickers estimated at anywhere from $40 billion to $100 billion a year, is also buying up banks, legitimate businesses and, to the south of us, entire governments. The latter becomes an increasingly likely outcome in a number of cities and states in this country as well. Cicero, Ill., during Prohibition is an instructive case in point.

The money to be made from an illegal product that has about 23 million current users in this country also explains why its sale is so attractive on the mean streets of America's big cities. A street salesman can gross about $2,500 a day in Washington, which puts him in the pay category of a local television anchor, and this in a neighborhood of dead-end job chances.

Since the courts and jails are already swamped beyond capacity by the arrests that are routinely made (44,000 drug dealers and users over a two-year period in Washington alone, for instance) and since those arrests barely skim the top of the pond, arguing that stricter enforcement is the answer begs a larger question: Who is going to pay the billions of dollars required to build the prisons, hire the judges, train the policemen and employ the prosecutors needed for the load already on hand, let alone the huge one yet to come if we ever get serious about arresting dealers and users?

Much is made of the cost of drug addiction, and it should be, but the current breakdown in the criminal justice system is not one of them. That breakdown is the result of prohibition, not addiction. Drug addiction, after all, does not come close to the far vaster problems of alcohol and tobacco addiction (as former Surgeon General Koop correctly noted, tobacco is at least as addictive as heroin). Hard drugs are estimated to kill 4,000 people a year directly and several tens of thousands a year indirectly. Alcohol kills at least 100,000 a year, addicts millions more and costs the marketplace billions of dollars. Tobacco kills over 300,000 a year, addicts tens of millions and fouls the atmosphere as well. But neither alcohol nor tobacco threaten to subvert our system of law and order, because they are treated as personal and societal problems rather than as criminal ones.

Indeed, every argument that is made for prohibiting the use of currently illegal drugs can be made even more convincingly about tobacco and alcohol. The effects on the unborn? Staggeringly direct. The effects on adolescents? Alcoholism is the addiction of choice for young Americans on a ratio of about 100 to one. Lethal effect? Tobacco's murderous results are not a matter of debate anywhere outside the Tobacco Institute.

Which leaves the lingering and legitimate fear that legalization might produce a surge in use. It probably would, although not nearly as dramatic a one as opponents usually estimate. The fact is that personal use of marijuana, whatever the local laws may say, has been virtually decriminalized for some time now, but there has been a stabilization or slight decline in use, rather than an increase, for several years. Heroin addiction has held steady at about 500,000 people for some time, though the street price of heroin is far lower now than it used to be. Use of cocaine in its old form also seems to have stopped climbing and begun to drop off among young and old alike, though there is an abundantly available supply.

That leaves crack cocaine, stalker of the inner city and terror of the suburbs. Instant and addictive in effect, easy to use and relatively cheap to buy, it is a personality-destroying substance that is a clear menace to its users. But it is hard to imagine it being any more accessible under legalization than it is in most cities today under prohibition, while the financial incentives for promoting its use would virtually disappear with legalization.

Proponents of legalization should not try to fuzz the issue, nonetheless. Addiction levels might increase, at least temporarily, if legal sanctions were removed. That happened after the repeal of Prohibition, or so at least some studies have suggested. But while that would be a personal disaster for the addicts and their families, and would involve larger costs to society as a whole, those costs would be minuscule compared with the costs of continued prohibition.

The young Capones of today own the inner cities and the wholesalers behind these young retailers are rapidly buying up the larger system which is supposed to control them. Prohibition gave us the Mafia and organized crime on a scale that has been with us ever since. The new prohibition is writing a new chapter on that old text. hel_l-bent on learning nothing from history, we are witnessing its repetition, predictably enough, as tragedy.

---

Reprinted with permission of Wall Street Journal Jul 13, 1989. Mr. Carter is a political commentator who heads a television production firm.

They seem to be comparing apples with oranges here.

Alcohol and Heroin are totally different. Heroine is VERY VERY addictive and absolutely ruins peoples lives, guaranteed. There is no such thing as a "casual heroine user" or "social user", like a social drinker or whatever.

So I cant see any real alternative. Making Heroine legal (cheap and easily accessible) isnt going to make it easier for people to kick their habit. I for one am a cigarette smoker and I would WELCOME any law that made cigarettes illegal. I have tried so many times to give up, but I find I myself going to the local shop to buy a pack. If they weren't easily available, I would have given up by now.

People usually get addicted to heroin because they have deep rooted emotional issues and the drug takes their pain away. However the drug itself does not help them in any way in the long run. Heroin addiction is a reflection of our modern society and the problems people have, usually from childhood, breakdowns of the family, rape, abuse, poverty and all the other issues that give people emotional and psychological problems. Also many people are "born" with psychological problems - for example you can find physical differences in the brains of bi-polar people to healthy people.

I think in many cases its unkind to label people as "bad" "scum" etc because of their heroin addiction. But yes the drug does ruin people and turn otherwise good people into killers, muggers. People who could kill their own grandmother and then have a shot and feel OK again.

I was just describing today to a friend my adventure with giving up smoking (one year after quitting drinking). Two keys that I can identify:

1) Acknowledging that, while smoking has its well-known evil aspects, there are some very positive aspects of smoking that need to be recognized by the addict, then sacrificed for his / her higher goal. For example, smoking for me was a ready friend, a way to relax, to calm down, to make my pain go away, to get a rush, etc. I cried on the last day I smoked, and I haven't looked back. 1982

2) A fellow addict told me as I was quitting, "The first few days will be very hard, then the difficulty will begin tapering off, allowing just a little bit of relaxation. Then, one day you will wake up feeling like a 'piece of s*** in the toilet'. As your mind searches for a solution, you will come to realize that the only possible thing to make the feeling go away is a cigarette. If you can somehow hold on and pass through that point, the feeling will change and subside, and you will have dealt a very serious blow to your addiction." That's what happened.

Chok Dee

[HydeParke]

Anyone this stupid deserves life; must be brain dead in this day and age of security checks. His drug carrying doesn't mean much to me, it is his complete stupidity that angers me. One less MORON around, for awhile that is.............

[Screws]

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

I suppose he would have preferred the death sentence.

Can we get a petition going for a death sentence?? We could probably get 50,000,000 signatures easily.

Just wait until Taksin's back in the driver's seat. No petition will be needed. He'll just slip and hit his head in the shower!

But what about some punishment for the drug runner?

[reallyok]

A death sentence possible for carrying heroin ?

That is madness compared to the sentences for other crimes

which take lives directly like murder and arson.

Except for selling to a minor, drugs should be legal with the personal consequences

of use the responsibility of the user just as it is for alcohol & tobacco.

But the politicians do not want to give up their gravy train;

arrests, prosecution, prisons, parole monitoring, and graft/payoffs.

Very discouraging thinking about how it is right now.

Hopefully, the future will be more enlightened.

paulfr is a fool.......generally murder and arson is a 'one-off' whereas drug trafficking goes on forever. Just think of the hunderds, maybe thousands who get those drugs and are hooked and wasted forever, so many wasted lives.

wake up paulfr!

[thaibkk]

to the people who dare to say, oh drugs is less a crime than murder :

they sell to everybody, even kids and a lot of people will get mugged, rubbed, broken into their cars and homes, stabbed, killed, to fuel their addiction that is so costly...

and just see in the US how many dumb people walk around... drugs cooks your brain till the only thing you want is a quick fix of hero, coke, whatever...

china and thailand are know to put them to sleep, so very stupid... go to myanmar or cambodia or laos instead ??? lol

should get death sentense or make him give his organs, except his brain, to science ...

[trainman34014]

It's disappointing that someone hauling smack out of the Kingdom gets life, but farang murderers here often get a only few years and serial pedophiles are frequently released so the police can extort them again and again.

Disappointing, ridiculous and wasteful.

They should all go to the gallows. The ultimate deterent for anyone who has half a brain. If the half a brain isn't functioning properly then they deserve what they get.

[bwalker1973]

All I can say, that who ever tries to deal or smuggle drugs, they always get caught and lose all their wealth with it no matter what country they are in. I have lost 3 good friends who fell for a similar activity like this because they were running dry on the cash front. One of them is serving 7 years in Japan, 1 is doing 3 years in Norway and the other is awaiting trial in Bangkok. I told them not to go, but they would not listen, the money is tempting with the highest being Japan upto 15000 USD.

There are recruiters everywhere, even in Pattaya down soi six, and soi seven/eight. A few british/austrailian lads working for Nepal & Arabs in Bangkok, who get paid $500 for recruiting people.

And its not just foreigners, there even getting Thai ladies to do it as well. How low can you get.

I bet these recruiters wouldn't even do it.

[SabaiBKK]

Execution is now by lethal injection. What was this silly fool thinking??? Australia's airports have some of the toughest security measures in the world.They've even made a TV series about it. He never saw the show??? I dont believe it. Every passenger coming off a flight from Asia or Sth America must walk past one of the little sniffer dogs in the baggage hall. Impossible to avoid them because officials are watching you. He was never ever going to get through. Zero chance particularly a flight from Bangkok which is probably the NO 1 watch flight for customs officials. Incredible.

he was carrying on his body, not in the luggage so i guess he would have left the smack in the plane and an accomplice working at the airport would have picked it up when cleaning / maintenance takes place .... otherwise , he is a real idiot if he thought he'd go through ..... on another note , its almost 100% sure that the BIB at the airport were tipped off

[SabaiBKK]

to the people who dare to say, oh drugs is less a crime than murder :

they sell to everybody, even kids .../...

drugs cooks your brain till the only thing you want is a quick fix of hero, coke, whatever...

should get death sentense or make him give his organs, except his brain, to science ...

yeah and all the states selling cigarettes and alcohol should be nuked also ......... tksssssss

wake up , alcohol and cigarettes kill more people worldwide every month than all the drugs altogether even if we count the collateral crimes associated to drug use .....

[ELVIS790]

I guess its a waste of time pleading temory insanity, i guess youve got to be completly of yer head to di it in the first plave. Sbiffer dohs are always about. Ive been going to board my flight before now and theyve lined us up with the sniffer dogs, myself and 2 others were told to step forawrd while the dog snifered around us. I was bricking it as my bird had packed my case not meeeeeeeeeee, plus we had rowed a few times during that holiday.

[Nerone]

It's disappointing that someone hauling smack out of the Kingdom gets life, but farang murderers here often get a only few years and serial pedophiles are frequently released so the police can extort them again and again.

Nobody point the gun to your head and says to do drugs... is an illegal commerce as it was the alchool in America etc etc... Thai laws also does not make any difference about light and hard drugs.... what a genius!!!!!!

Yes I am agree with you, murderers get away easy with three years and what about paedophile? I would hang them all if I were supposed to write the penalties...... Probably the paedophiles and the murderes doesn't endanger the monopolies of the local "economy".....

....Somebody built a fortune with drugs and even made a war to it....

What a beautiful world!

[thaibkk]

to the people who dare to say, oh drugs is less a crime than murder :

they sell to everybody, even kids .../...

drugs cooks your brain till the only thing you want is a quick fix of hero, coke, whatever...

should get death sentense or make him give his organs, except his brain, to science ...

yeah and all the states selling cigarettes and alcohol should be nuked also ......... tksssssss

wake up , alcohol and cigarettes kill more people worldwide every month than all the drugs altogether even if we count the collateral crimes associated to drug use .....

did you know anyone who would stab, rob, steal, mugg, break in, to be able to get money to buy a pack of sigaretess whatever price it is now ?

as what many hard drug addics do every day, for their own personal daily fixes...

[Will27]

life probably doesn't mean life. he will probably get 15 years and then get released and then be at the age where he can easily get a pretty young thai girlfriend pretending to love him not for his passport. not too bad a deal then.

Like your wife?

Grow up!

[jobsworth]

Execution is now by lethal injection. What was this silly fool thinking??? Australia's airports have some of the toughest security measures in the world.They've even made a TV series about it. He never saw the show??? I dont believe it. Every passenger coming off a flight from Asia or Sth America must walk past one of the little sniffer dogs in the baggage hall. Impossible to avoid them because officials are watching you. He was never ever going to get through. Zero chance particularly a flight from Bangkok which is probably the NO 1 watch flight for customs officials. Incredible.

Please tell us more. What TV series? What little sniffer dog?

Why did they slit open the Velcro fastenings inside my luggage (on a journey from Bangkok to Perth)?

[HardenedSoul]

i hope he dies of aids first, people like him never change and do not deserve a second chance, bring in the death penalty

What a self-righteous tool . . . !

Who the *%$^ are you to say he doesn't deserve a second chance ?

[rinpoche]

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

I suppose he would have preferred the death sentence.

Then he should have smuggled the drugs in Singapore.

[Ga-gai]

If you break the law, then you have also signed a contract where you agree on the punishment...

[mrtoad]

WHY DO WE ALWAYS CONCENTRATE ON THE MULES AND NEVER TRY TO FIND THE REAL CRIMINALS THAT CREATE THIS TRADE IN THE FIRST PLACE. COULD IT BE GOVERNMENTS REALLY DON'T WANT TO FIND OUT BECAUSE THEN THEY WOULD LOSE OUT ON THEIR CUT OF THE PROFITS?

MAYBE WE SHOULD GIVE INCENTIVES TO MULES TO RAT OUT THEIR SOURSE AND THEN WORK UP THE CHAIN RATTING OUT EACH SOURSE UNTIL WE GET THE BIG WIGS BEHIND ANY CRIMINAL TRADE.

YA! YOU SAY IN OUR DREAMS!! UNTIL WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT THESE POOR SLOBS WILL TAKE THE RISKS AND PAY THE PRICE WHILE THE REAL CRIMS FROM THESE TRADES STILL LAP UP THEIR LIFE OF LUXURY. SHAME ON ALL GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD THEY CREATE THESE SLAVES BY MAKING US ALL CONSUMERS WANTING MORE AND MORE!!

Sorry, could you speak up a bit? I can't hear you.

[sriracha john]

Westerners don´t think the same way as regular people

What was I thinking?

That's why all the prisons in Thailand are full of Westerners and no Asians - just the "irregular people" habitat the prison system. It also explains why the Western World really consist's of third world countries.

Appropriate to the above is the other similar case decided the same day as Mr. Hood....

Thai court jails Malaysian drug dealer for 30 years

BANGKOK, Aug 5 — A 40-year-old Malaysian has been sentenced to 30 years' jail and fined 500,000 baht for drug trafficking and overstaying in Thailand.

The Criminal Court, however, halved the sentence due to David Goh Chee Leong's confession.

The Bangkok Post reported that Goh was arrested on Jan 5 at a rented apartment in Bangkok's Laksi district with 2.58g of crystal meth (known as "ice"), 71.97g of ecstasy, 44.71g of ketamine, and 8.01g of nimetazepam, a party drug marketed under the name Erimin.

He also faces a related charge of possession with intent to supply.

The daily also said that another Malaysian, aged 31, was arrested on Monday with a Thai accomplice in the southern province of Satun for allegedly smuggling 2.88g of crystal meth.

A number of Malaysians had been arrested in Thailand over the past few months for smuggling in synthetic drugs, including a marketing manager with a foreign workers agency who was nabbed at a luxury condominium here and three others in Sungai Golok, Narathiwat.

- Bernama News (Malaysia) / 2009-08-05

[caf]

It amazes me that with all the life sentences handed out, fully covered by the media, that fools in full knowledge of the conditions in Thai prisons still take a chance with their futures when most have the safety net of a welfare system back home. I wonder if the success rate is so high that most mules make it through and they consider it a safe bet. Junkies numbed beyond repair, I can understand, but the rest. Madness beyond belief.

Regards Bojo

I'd plump for arrogant imperialist mindset.

imperialist mindset.

he's australian.!!

what on earth are you talking about

[hanajake]

Australian jailed for life in Thailand

Andrew Hood pleaded guilty to the crime.

(Reuters: Sukree Sukplang, file photo)

BANGKOK: -- An Australian man who confessed to trying to smuggle three kilograms of heroin out of Thailand has been sentenced to life in jail.

Police arrested Andrew Hood, 37, in early December last year as he tried to leave Bangkok airport for Sydney.

During Hood's trial earlier this month, two police officers gave evidence and showed photographs of a number of packages taped to his stomach and legs.

The packages contained heroin worth about $500,000.

When he was first detained, Hood told reporters he attempted to smuggle the drugs for the money.

Hood's feet were chained as he stood in the court as the verdict was read.

The judge told him he was due a death sentence, but his confession meant he was given a jail term instead.

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

Thai authorities have issued an arrest warrant for the 34-year-old Australian who was with Hood at the time he was arrested, but who escaped.

-- abc.net.au 2009-08-05

The reason they do it---------------Money or addiction, either of which blinds the mind!!!!

[MyphuketLife]

Outside the court Hood told reporters he was disappointed with the life sentence.

I suppose he would have preferred the death sentence.

I would rather take a death sentence... Death over life in Thai jail any day of the week.

[hansnl]

It amazes me that with all the life sentences handed out, fully covered by the media, that fools in full knowledge of the conditions in Thai prisons still take a chance with their futures when most have the safety net of a welfare system back home. I wonder if the success rate is so high that most mules make it through and they consider it a safe bet. Junkies numbed beyond repair, I can understand, but the rest. Madness beyond belief.

Regards Bojo

Bojo, only around 12-15% of the runners are caught.

But, what I would like to know is where and from whom he obtained the "parcels"

And where and to whom he had to deliver.

I have a feeling that not much was done to try to find the source or the destination.

I would imagine that any names he had, would have been blurted out immediately under the slightest pressure by the authorities in the hope of a lighter sentance. I suppose getting life is lighter than death depending on how you look at it. What method are they using for the death sentence these days?

How do you know only 12-15% are caught by the way?!

Regards Bojo

Now, wouldn't you like to know how I know?

Well, if you want to find out, start searching criminal statistics generated by several biggish police/justice organisations in the world, and freely available

Why do I know? I am gathering useless information.

The percentage is probably lower, much lower.

But anyway, if the percentage was any higher, it would not be acceptable for the suppliers or the distributors.

And maybe the guy blurted his heart out, but the question is: was the blurted usable, and if yes, what was done with that knowledge.

Any follow up?

Because anywhere in the world, couriers get nabbed, the suppliers and distributors can go on merrily.

Maybe you remember the case of the hundreds of arrests in NZ for downloading the film of the rape of a very young Russian girl?

In the meantime, thousands of downloaders, all over the world are arrested already.

(mind you, never mind the arrests, good show)

However, the ongoing arrests mean that the filth is still downloadable.

There are still criminals earning a lot of money with it.

There are still creditcard companies, banks, and whatever businesses earning money with it.

Nobody seems to be able to stop it, or arrest the rapist, or arrest the ones that set it up, filmed it.....whatever.

hel_l, they even don't know who the girl is.

I start to wonder if the whole thing is not slowly getting into the realm of a scam.

By who?

Who knows.

The police maybe, they score all the time, and show the public and politicians: look at us, we are so good, hundreds of arrests, can we get some extra money please?

Mind you, of course it is much easier to arrest downloaders as uploaders, there are always more of the first.

So the chance to nab those stupido's is much bigger, so easier to score.

Maybe, just maybe, the drug business, because of the huge amounts of cash generated, it too attractive for a lot of people to stop it.

The arresting of some stupid couriers from time to time is just a cosmetic gesture by the officials to show the world: we are doing something about it!

That, Bojo, is what I meant.