Receptionist Drugged, Hotel Robbed By Foreigner In Phuket

[harleyd61]

Fishy..

[SouthernMan3]

Another dicey ass Farang.

Boot'm all out of the country and it would be so much nicer for us non dicey Farang

[Briandajew]

I don't believe a word of this. Why would a farang make coffee for the hotel receptionist? Why would the recetionist take a coffee from a farang? Then all the CCTV tapes go missing......I vote for The Receptionist - In The Lobby, and the Candlestick.

[Jimi007]

I have a quick question which I will ask in this thread, as it is on topic.

Do any of the banks here have safety deposit boxes for rent? If so, have any members had any experience with hiring one? Are they secure and well managed? What sizes and prices?

I've never seen one at any of the branches of Siam Commercial or Bangkok Bank where i have accounts.

[hubahuba]

Now this is a case where the tail wag's the dog.......

[ThaidDown]

I have a quick question which I will ask in this thread, as it is on topic.

Do any of the banks here have safety deposit boxes for rent? If so, have any members had any experience with hiring one? Are they secure and well managed? What sizes and prices?

Local banks do, but do not know if all branches or only the bigger ones. BUT..from what I hear there is nearly always a waiting list and only available if you are a customer at that branch.

We have one at a local bank that is about 25x40x10 cm (guess from memory). Was 300 baht/year when we first got it, now 800 baht/year.

Note these are 'proper' safety deposit boxes kept in a locked room but easy access during banking hours.

[stevenl]

Can you tell someone is an Arab by just looking? The Middle East has many ethnic groups including Turks, Turkomans, Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Copts, Jews, Maronites, Assyro-Chaldeans, Circassians, Armenians, Druze and Arabs. The Iranians I know will certainly correct you if you refer to them as Arab. And what about people of Middle Eastern enthnicity born and bred in Europe and New World countries? My point being that news articles such as this commonly stereotype and racially profile people without any basis of fact. How about a headline that just says "Phuket Police suspect three men in B3mn locker heist".

Well, the fact is the receptionist told police he thought they were from an Arab country. So why not mention the fact.

[djvolak]

Who puts there Mobile/Cell phone in the hotels safety deposit boxes ??? would they not be using them

Some people have more than one. Maybe a work phone and a travel phone so the work phone woul be in the box. Maybe they were planning a trip to the beach and did not want the phone to get wet. I have put mine in the safe before also for any number of reasons. Usually in my room safe though but I can easily understand someone doing so at the desk also. If you do not have a Thai sim in it you would not be using it. Correct?

[NamKangMan]

I have a quick question which I will ask in this thread, as it is on topic.

Do any of the banks here have safety deposit boxes for rent? If so, have any members had any experience with hiring one? Are they secure and well managed? What sizes and prices?

Local banks do, but do not know if all branches or only the bigger ones. BUT..from what I hear there is nearly always a waiting list and only available if you are a customer at that branch.

We have one at a local bank that is about 25x40x10 cm (guess from memory). Was 300 baht/year when we first got it, now 800 baht/year.

Note these are 'proper' safety deposit boxes kept in a locked room but easy access during banking hours.

Thanks for your reply. I will keep this in mind.

[hansnl]

Farangs drugging Thais? That's a twist.

My understanding, farang refers to the westerners, especially the white ones.

Not sure that middle-easterners fall into this category.

Race-concious?

[stoli]

Insurance won't pay any claims on this. If they would, it would be US $3 Million Dollars, not B3 Million stolen.

[ThaiTerry]

I have a quick question which I will ask in this thread, as it is on topic.

Do any of the banks here have safety deposit boxes for rent? If so, have any members had any experience with hiring one? Are they secure and well managed? What sizes and prices?

Have tried always told they are all rented

[NamKangMan]

Insurance won't pay any claims on this. If they would, it would be US $3 Million Dollars, not B3 Million stolen.

Travel insurance will pay out on the phones, cameras, jewellery (if specified on policy) laptops/ipads etc etc that may be in the safety deposit box. Usually, they do not pay out on cash, and if they do, it's only a few hundred dollars.

[smotherb]

Who puts there Mobile/Cell phone in the hotels safety deposit boxes ??? would they not be using them

Tourists who know no one in Thailand or who don't think about it, or who bought a pre-pay, or who are too cheap to buy a sym and load, or who do not want to keep in touch--dozens more reasons no doubt., Edited January 17, 2013 by smotherb

[madmitch]

I don't believe a word of this. Why would a farang make coffee for the hotel receptionist? Why would the recetionist take a coffee from a farang? Then all the CCTV tapes go missing......I vote for The Receptionist - In The Lobby, and the Candlestick.

Why would a farang make coffee for a receptionist?

Possibly so he could drug it! And he didn't make it, he allegedly bought it at the 7-Eleven just around the corner. And they do have working CCTV, so I have been told.

And why would the receptionist take the coffee?

Because the perpetrator(s) had befriended the guy over the previous couple of evenings.

I'm not denying that there could be some collusion here but please read what has been stated in both the newspaper articles.

[Stokakrishna]

the receptionist took the money drugged himself and is blamingsome farang.

[smotherb]

There were 3 million THB in the guest deposit boxes and the hotel staff didn't steal it ?? And why would the guests keep that much in cash to start with? This story is full of holes.

It wasn't all cash, the report said that belongings worth 3M baht were stolen.

Interesting that they can place a value on what tourists secretly placed in safe-deposit boxes, or are even more falangs involved--staging the robbery, falsifing the value of the stolen articles and using the police report of that value to defraud their insurance companies--makes me proud of my falang heritage

Jesus guys, if you are going to make things up, put a little imagination into it

[Mudcrab]

Can you tell someone is an Arab by just looking? The Middle East has many ethnic groups including Turks, Turkomans, Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Copts, Jews, Maronites, Assyro-Chaldeans, Circassians, Armenians, Druze and Arabs. The Iranians I know will certainly correct you if you refer to them as Arab. And what about people of Middle Eastern enthnicity born and bred in Europe and New World countries? My point being that news articles such as this commonly stereotype and racially profile people without any basis of fact. How about a headline that just says "Phuket Police suspect three men in B3mn locker heist".

Not uncommon to see "suspect of asian appearance" in newspaper reports in the west. Maybe we all look the same to an asian...theres a twist.

The bride assures me farang refers to any non asian, or non asian appearance, so there are farangs, black farangs etc.

Edited January 17, 2013 by Mudcrab

[smotherb]

Must be a TV member who read about the mistake from the first one in Koh Samui...

Next on the news: TV..for all your do's and don't to become a successful criminal... Lol

Now, that's what I am talking about, a little imagination

[smotherb]

Farangs drugging Thais? That's a twist.

My understanding, farang refers to the westerners, especially the white ones.

Not sure that middle-easterners fall into this category.

falang is any non-thai

[smotherb]

Here's an even more fantastic fabrication for you armchair criminologists, Snoop Lion is in Phuket, he looks a bit like a middle-easterner, and you know what criminals those rappers are--I see it all now, Snoop Lion, formerly known as Snoop Dogg, is the mastermind behind all the hotel safety box robberies in Thailand

[SpeedFreakz]

I wonder what the receptionists cut was?

jb1

I think he was fine with just drugged lol...

[JetsetBkk]

Farangs drugging Thais? That's a twist.

My understanding, farang refers to the westerners, especially the white ones.

Not sure that middle-easterners fall into this category.

falang is any non-thai

More like "any westerner", including southerners (Australians, New Zealanders) and northerners (Russians, etc).

[Sauliossiinthailand]

Hahaha

[Jimi007]

Farangs drugging Thais? That's a twist.

My understanding, farang refers to the westerners, especially the white ones.

Not sure that middle-easterners fall into this category.

falang is any non-thai

Wrong! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farang Also the word farang is used for the white fleshed passion fruit here. Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Malaysian, etc are not referred to as farang...

Edited January 17, 2013 by Jimi007

[maidu]

how did they know what was in the safety deposit boxes ?

Good question. Perhaps some of the farang made formal claims, but that's just taking the word of individuals.

From the follow up news item, it sounds plausible that the 2 or 3 men came in, spoke for awhile (one or two evenings prior) to the receptionist, with questions like, "how much do you think are in those safety boxes?" "wouldn't you love to have a portion of that?" "it would be sooooo easy for you to just step aside, turn off the CC cameras, give us the keys, and we'll give you a perfect alibi, with some story of drugged coffee."

[yoslim]

safety deposit boxes

they look more like unsafe wooden boxes

100% inside job, receptionist did it, took cctv tape and then fall asleep with a coffee + valium

[Bpuumike]

Farangs drugging Thais? That's a twist.

My understanding, farang refers to the westerners, especially the white ones.

Not sure that middle-easterners fall into this category.

falang is any non-thai

More like "any westerner", including southerners (Australians, New Zealanders) and northerners (Russians, etc).

Usually Caucasian, others are not called farang, just Indian, Arab, African, Chinese, etc. At least that's according to one 'close' source.

[fiddlehead]

Insurance won't pay any claims on this. If they would, it would be US $3 Million Dollars, not B3 Million stolen.

Depends on the policy.

I had a set of skis stolen once and even though I got them on sale for about $175, the replacement value was over $500 and that's what the insurance company gave me.

($500)

I have a good insurance man and I just showed him the police report and what kind of skis they were, I had the check in 3 days.

So, maybe some of these folks had a camera in there that they paid $300 for, but was list priced at $650.

Cell phones, cameras, jewelry, (I imagine a few jewelry items could get inflated prices from the guests)

So, yeah, 3M Baht is a little hard to believe but, half of that is possible.

And the police said they are only estimating as many guests couldn't speak English.

Take these stories with a grain of salt folks.

The media likes to sell newspapers and exaggerate a bit.

We are probably getting more truth from MadMitch who seem to know the owners.

If there were padlocks on the boxes, a good screwdriver can break most of those smaller ones. Or bolt cutters would make it easy.

Anyway, lots of tourists here now. I imagine there are thieves about.

[cbrer]

Where else but the sow's nest of Phuket?

Pattaya, Samui, and in a few years, most of Thailand.