Local Video Game Shop Closes.

[Richb2004v2]

After using the same video game store for about 3 years it finally disappeared recently. I say finally because it seems that businesses come and go quite quickly here. Anyway I found another, so no big deal. Last week we met the old store owner in a market, where he told us that the business was ok if it hadn't been for constantly having to pay the police. He said it got so bad that it made the business uneconomical and not worth the trouble. In the end he was hiring a second unit to hide his stock otherwise the police threatened to take it unless he paid up. I was amazed at this. I know people say the police are like a mafia organization here but that seems a bit much. However I guess if you look at it another way he was selling copied software so maybe it's only right. Morally tricky one really. I guess they may have picked in him as an easy target. I can't imagine they could just do it to any shop or business. Any experience anyone?

[moe666]

After using the same video game store for about 3 years it finally disappeared recently. I say finally because it seems that businesses come and go quite quickly here. Anyway I found another, so no big deal. Last week we met the old store owner in a market, where he told us that the business was ok if it hadn't been for constantly having to pay the police. He said it got so bad that it made the business uneconomical and not worth the trouble. In the end he was hiring a second unit to hide his stock otherwise the police threatened to take it unless he paid up. I was amazed at this. I know people say the police are like a mafia organization here but that seems a bit much. However I guess if you look at it another way he was selling copied software so maybe it's only right. Morally tricky one really. I guess they may have picked in him as an easy target. I can't imagine they could just do it to any shop or business. Any experience anyone?

I would guess if you are perfectly legal you would be open for the min. payment but doing something illigal , saleing copied software you are on a different playing field. In Chaing Mai recently and went to the same internet shop I have used over the years and he is having a hard time because of lack of tourist.

[gpdjohn]

Sitting in a eatery in Chiang Mai last year when a young BIB came in and talked to the owner right next to the table the wife and I were sitting at. The BIB told the owner that he would require 1000 baht a month or he would make trouble. Couldn't believe that he was so right out in the open with his demand knowing the two of us could hear everything that was being said.

He was telling the owner that he was new in the area and was making his rounds to set up payments with the business.

One of my Thai relatives is a major player in the Narcotics Control Board and while discussing graf within the RTP he said and I quote.." John, it's not corruption, it's what we call customer relations.."

Me, being a retired cop and knowing that he makes trips to the USA for meetings with the USDEA at least twice a year in Washington DC, I was shocked. He asked me what would happen if a police officer in the department where I worked did this and I told him that he/she would go to prison for a long time, he just shook his head.... ( he already knew the answer )

I knew from then that maybe not all of RTP are corrupt, but like the hiway police officer a few years ago that was clean and made an attempt to try and stop it, and wound up being shot to death in front of his family, that they learn from thier rookie days that it's just the way things are here and to go against the grain could possibly be a death sentence.

In my eyes they are not police, just the largest criminal gang that wears the same clothes.

[surayu]

In my eyes they are not police, just the largest criminal gang that wears the same clothes.

.....yes that's how the United Nations also defined them, not so straight forward but going around with words, a few months ago i was eating out in a local restaurant too and the BiB pickup just stopped on front of the restaurant (the "hole in the wall" kind of restaurant), then i saw a BiB extending his arm out of the window without coming out of the car and waiting with his open hand like if he was waiting for someone to give him something, after a few seconds the owner of the place rushed to the car and gave him some cash....it was lunch time and on an open road....rumours are that the owner of this place is also running another business renting out rooms to "pay as you go" ladies... if i remember right, even the ousted pm once described corruption as a normal standard procedure, TiT.

[TheLaughingMan]

And yet.... people will still deny it. Falangs with no idea what they are talking about but adamant they are right. Because "it never happened to them".