Tourist drugging gang caught in Hua Hin, also active in Bangkok and Pattaya

[Briggsy]

This is one reason to keep in contact with others who will watch your back, be they friends, colleagues, a partner, neighbours. If you disappear for a day will anybody come to look for you and see how you are.

This is second nature to Thais who know that safety is much better maintained in groups.

I hope the perpetrators of these crimes get very heavy sentences. This is a terrible crime and happened to a friend's relative in Khao San Road. She totally lost the plot for a week and was found walking down the road half-naked.

[bitterbatter]

Now that this technique has been described in detail by the media, expect many copycat criminals to add it to their deviant ways. Sometimes I am glad I don't have any money or anything worth stealing.

Edited January 28, 2014 by bitterbatter

[Dork]

You have got to be bloody careful all the time now in Thailand......driving, crossing a road, using your credit cards,being careful what you drink etc etc. So different from the Thailand I fell in love with 14 years ago !

Don't disagree with your sentiments but my own experience is that this particular crime was more common circa 20 years ago than it is now. I can think of 3 friends that had it happen. It is much more difficult to buy the necessary drugs now than it was then. It was said that the drug of choice in those days was Dormicum which any pharmacy would openly sell you.

That's not going to stop organised gangs like this lot but it does make it harder for individual chancers.

Of the 3 cases that I remember well, one was a bit of a fool but the other 2 were living/working in Bangkok and both pretty streetwise. The problem is that once someone is drunk in a busy place, even somewhere respectable, it is too easy to drop some powder into their drink and they won't notice.

Even in those days the police did take it quite seriously but I suspect that the majority of victims are too embarrassed to report. Reading some of the local online newspapers you would understand why.