Paying fine direct to police individual a/c after nightclub arrest

[georgey]

My wife received a call the other night (around 4 am) from a young niece who'd been done at a nightclub in a remote part of BKK (somewhere in Pra Ram 9) for being both underage (19) & for having some dodgy substance in her system (as ascertained by a piss-test, no idea what she'd taken (nor, of course, did the police)). She was done for B10,000, which seems quite a lot for a young girl, but I've no interest in discussing whether that was the right amount or not, just a fair old bit for most Thais of that age. My wife paid the "fine" straight away, by internet banking, to the account of one of the so-called "police officers" so that her niece could go home. We have the the details of the account to which the money was paid.

Is there anything we can do to ensure that the guy who took the money into his personal account doesn't get away with it? Surely a wonderful example of corruption in Thailand at its best.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not for a moment suggesting the penalty was wrong, maybe it should be a great multiple of that number (though maybe that would cause some relativity issues, if the Thais understood the meaning of the word "relativity"); how much does a bus company have to pay when large numbers of its passengers die in a crash? Is it OK to have a nightclub which burns down killing several patrons? Absolutely right to discourage the young from going out & taking drugs, though that said, they have SO many other more pressing issues to look at.

But the fine going into the personal a/c of one of the "officers'" personal account?? & we know his name & a/c #.....can we use this the way it ought to be used?? Or will they just come & kill the unfortunate teenager in revenge? Is there some honest body to which one can complain?

[harrry]

If you try you may find your niece who had illicit substances and hence was liable to about 6 months have a nice holiday in a rehabilitation camp.

You can face imprisonment from six months to three years and/or a fine of ten thousand to sixty thousand baht if you test positive for a Category I or II drug, like Yaba, cocaine, Ice or ecstasy; and imprisonment of up to one year and/or a fine of up to twenty thousand baht if you test positive for a Category V drug, like marijuana or Kratom. There are laws protecting you If you take drugs and feel like you are dangerously disoriented or at risk for overdose and then choose to check yourself into a medical facility. If you are able to check into a medical facility before being caught by a law enforcement official and you have not broken any Thai laws other than consuming drugs, you are eligible to be excused from penalties.

from http://www.thailawforum.com/tourst-guide-laws-Thailand-4.html

I know someone who had to pay the same once and it was a little more serious use than that...if that was all there was. It was given in the form of a warning a few months later he got 6 years and could not pay his way out.

Edited August 12, 2013 by harrry

[nottocus]

Bite the bullet and move on.

Maybe tell the niece that next time your wife won't pay the cops off.

[AnotherOneAmerican]

More likely the niece was scamming your wife (or you).

I suspect the money your wife transferred into nieces bfs account.

Edited August 12, 2013 by AnotherOneAmerican

[lemoncake]

I am confused , so money was paid and niece is released and now you want to file a complaint? Or get the money back?

[meom]

More likely the niece was scamming your wife (or you).

I suspect the money your wife transferred into nieces bfs account.

LOL.

Anything to extend the party and buy some more dope.

However if the story is true then it's better to pay your way out of it before it goes to court.

[Nana Cowboy]

Very nice of your wife to come thru so quickly with the cash. You must be very proud. When cash is needed qwuickly nieces, nephews and all kinds of relatives know where to go. You're a lucky man my friend

[MegaRanter]

Account name is never gonna be Lt major sompiti. How ya know it's a cops account baffles me.

[ShopBoy]

this have to be cash deal

why would a cop leave a evidence trail by asking someone to send money to their bank account ?

[harrry]

this have to be cash deal

why would a cop leave a evidence trail by asking someone to send money to their bank account ?

Not a problem here. May be in the west but your wife sent the money to him because she felt like being generous.

[simple1]

OP: if this is not a scam by the niece (sounds like it was), your wife agreed to pay tea money rather than the niece being arrested and charged to appear in court, so you have no recourse. If a true story, the amount of tea money is about correct for a first offence and highly likely she was tested positive for YaBa/ICE. I would be a lot more concerned that the niece is taking YaBa or ICE as highly likely she is using on a regular basis when clubbing or indeed any other time.

Edited August 13, 2013 by simple1

[FritsSikkink]

There are 2 options in my opinion:

1. your niece is taking yaba, ice or another drug ==) be glad she didn't have to go to jail and let your wife have a good talk with your niece and let her work for the money
2. your niece is taking the piss and scammed you / your wife ==) let your wife have a good talk with your niece and let her work for the money

​Forget about the policeman if there was one in the first place.

[thaicbr]

Op... your niece is lucky the police man wanted the money and your wife paid it. It's not unknown for them to take the girls to short time hotels and rent them out to their friends. It happened to a friend of a friend.. 8 hours pretty much none stop... BUT she didn't go to prison so remarkably was happy.

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE Q6

[weka]

Give the account details to the Nigerians

[monkeycountry]

You did not pay a fine, you paid a bribe!

[lomatopo]

The money is long gone, and went into a third-party account, and you'll never get the receiving bank to divulge any details, even when filing police reports. There have been some high profile kidnappings and the ransoms were paid into "shell" accounts which were quickly liquidated, no money was ever recovered

I doubt the niece was scamming you, although this is a common scam by family members on unsuspecting foreigners, as it is your wife who gave her the money from her own personal account. Since you did not contribute I'd say the bribe was real, these usually have to be paid before the end of the current shift, and unrecoverable.

Just put the niece on a re-payment plan to recover the money and her lesson will be learned.

[harrry]

The money is long gone, and went into a third-party account, and you'll never get the receiving bank to divulge any details, even when filing police reports. There have been some high profile kidnappings and the ransoms were paid into "shell" accounts which were quickly liquidated, no money was ever recovered

I doubt the niece was scamming you, although this is a common scam by family members on unsuspecting foreigners, as it is your wife who gave her the money from her own personal account. Since you did not contribute I'd say the bribe was real, these usually have to be paid before the end of the current shift, and unrecoverable.

Just put the niece on a re-payment plan to recover the money and her lesson will be learned.

What you do have to do is to talk to your wife about the problem her daughter has with drugs....probably Yabba. You should decide now between you what to do next time it occurs.

Edited August 14, 2013 by harrry

[lomatopo]

What you do have to do is to talk to your wife about the problem her daughter has with drugs

Stated relation is a niece, rather than a daughter, so depending on family dynamics this might be best left to the parents, who probably were not contacted because the niece was ashamed/afraid, or maybe because they did not have 10,000 baht?

Edited August 14, 2013 by lomatopo

[harrry]

What you do have to do is to talk to your wife about the problem her daughter has with drugs

Stated relation is a niece, rather than a daughter, so depending on family dynamics this might be best left to the parents, who were not contacted because the niece was ashamed/afraid, or maybe because they did not have 10,000 baht?

Sorry.

But you and your wife will still need unfortunately decide what to do next time.

It is a nasty situation for all.

[lomatopo]

Sorry.

​http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/660336-paying-fine-direct-to-police-individual-ac-after-nightclub-arrest/#entry6710633'>georgey is the OP and affected party.

The niece might have just run up a tab at the club and needed cash to pay her bill, so she may not have a drug problem. Again, getting her to repay the money, perhaps by getting a job and staying out of the clubs, will probably go a long way towards modifying her behavior. If there are issues repaying the money then this might point to further challenges?

[Nisa]

I think you are being protective of your family, which is a good thing, but it is causing you to direct your anger and frustration over the incident at everyone but your niece who it appears clearly was breaking a few laws, taking drugs and got caught.

If you want this matter on the books then by all means pursue the issue and have your niece get an actual police record which would do her harm when it comes to her career and if she ever wants to immigrate to a first world country.

And by the way, there is absolutely no doubt the police know what drug she took and informed the niece. They don't test for abnormal urine, they test for specific drugs having been consumed.

As for complaining because she was not jailed and brought before a judge and marked for life with a criminal record and instead you were able to make a payoff to avoid this .... I have no idea why you would think this might be a good thing for her or you.

Be happy you have the money in Thailand to buy your way out of a situation like this. In many countries it would take a lot more money, power and connections to keep an incident like this off the books.

[GirlDrinkDrunk]

Very nice of your wife to come thru so quickly with the cash. You must be very proud. When cash is needed qwuickly nieces, nephews and all kinds of relatives know where to go. You're a lucky man my friend

maybe you can happily blow off family, but i would happily help my ex or her sister, because if they asked it would mean they were absolutely desperate. they would help me too.

then again there is the assumption that all thai families are dodgy when in fact my exs family came up with 200k to help me put my kid in an international school because I was waiting on money. they were repaid shortly thereafter despite the fact that they said they were happy to help.

it seems to me that so many of you lot have settled down with the first woman who would have you and been burned that you think everyone in thailand is as dodgy as the "partner" and family your poor judgement ended you up with.

[GirlDrinkDrunk]

I think you are being protective of your family, which is a good thing, but it is causing you to direct your anger and frustration over the incident at everyone but your niece who it appears clearly was breaking a few laws, taking drugs and got caught.

If you want this matter on the books then by all means pursue the issue and have your niece get an actual police record which would do her harm when it comes to her career and if she ever wants to immigrate to a first world country.

And by the way, there is absolutely no doubt the police know what drug she took and informed the niece. They don't test for abnormal urine, they test for specific drugs having been consumed.

As for complaining because she was not jailed and brought before a judge and marked for life with a criminal record and instead you were able to make a payoff to avoid this .... I have no idea why you would think this might be a good thing for her or you.

Be happy you have the money in Thailand to buy your way out of a situation like this. In many countries it would take a lot more money, power and connections to keep an incident like this off the books.

yes but a test for meth would show ya baa, even coke or 'ecstacy' that had been cut with it.

the police her only test for one thing when they go to a club, pretending different is silly.

[varun]

As you yourself have mentioned, there is a paper trail to the account where you transferred the money.

Find out who that person is (if you can).

It is most definitely not the police, I suspect it is the account number of the dealer from whom your wife's niece has been getting her drug of choice.

It's likely that she has some 'unresolved debts' with this aforementioned dealer.

Edited August 15, 2013 by varun

[manarak]

My wife received a call the other night (around 4 am) from a young niece who'd been done at a nightclub in a remote part of BKK (somewhere in Pra Ram 9) for being both underage (19) & for having some dodgy substance in her system (as ascertained by a piss-test, no idea what she'd taken (nor, of course, did the police)). She was done for B10,000, which seems quite a lot for a young girl, but I've no interest in discussing whether that was the right amount or not, just a fair old bit for most Thais of that age. My wife paid the "fine" straight away, by internet banking, to the account of one of the so-called "police officers" so that her niece could go home. We have the the details of the account to which the money was paid.

Is there anything we can do to ensure that the guy who took the money into his personal account doesn't get away with it? Surely a wonderful example of corruption in Thailand at its best.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not for a moment suggesting the penalty was wrong, maybe it should be a great multiple of that number (though maybe that would cause some relativity issues, if the Thais understood the meaning of the word "relativity"); how much does a bus company have to pay when large numbers of its passengers die in a crash? Is it OK to have a nightclub which burns down killing several patrons? Absolutely right to discourage the young from going out & taking drugs, though that said, they have SO many other more pressing issues to look at.

But the fine going into the personal a/c of one of the "officers'" personal account?? & we know his name & a/c #.....can we use this the way it ought to be used?? Or will they just come & kill the unfortunate teenager in revenge? Is there some honest body to which one can complain?

Complain about what?

Either the story is true and the girl had a positive test and was underage and the money really went to a policeman - in this case the 10.000 will avoid serious consequences for the girl, why would you want to compain to anybody?

Or the story is not true, and the money wasn't paid to a police officer, and instead went to her BF, her drug dealer or whoever, and in this case you would have no grounds to complain about the police.

[Gsxrnz]

Whether the BIB was fact or fiction (I suspect fiction), I'm concerned that your wife didn't try and negotiate the amount down.

Also concerned hat she didn't ask for firm proof that it was a genuine situation - such as a photograph of the scene, or a video call with the BIB. Every Thai girl worth their salt has video apps on their phone.

[ExpatJ]

More likely the niece was scamming your wife (or you).

I suspect the money your wife transferred into nieces bfs account.

This. niece knows aunt is married to farang- easy score. And kudos to her for the ingenuity!

[AnotherOneAmerican]

More likely the niece was scamming your wife (or you).

I suspect the money your wife transferred into nieces bfs account.

This. niece knows aunt is married to farang- easy score. And kudos to her for the ingenuity!

Let's hope it was the niece scamming you and not your wife.

[Somchai Mao]

You can be sure the story you have been told is either partially untrue or total BS. If your wife is in on it then think about the repercussions, if you open a hornets nest with the police then it is likely you will live to regret it. Find a way to get the niece to pay you back in installments to give the message to the family you aren't a soft touch. Now join the queue of farang who have been done over by unscrupulous Thai's. Remember, you are in Thailand, nothing is ever as it seems.

[brummiebob]

Should have done it properly and let her spent the night in the cells and bail her out the morning after, cost about the same