American man arrested for allegedly selling ‘ice’ in Pattaya

Pattaya, Chon Buri: Police have arrested a 58-year-old American man for allegedly selling crystal amphetamine or “ice” to tourists in Pattaya.

Keith Lyman Brown was arrested in a sting operation at 2:30 am on Thursday at the Prima Place hotel on Pattaya Sai Sam Road in the South Pattaya area.

Acting on tips-off that a foreigner has been selling drug to foreign tourists in Pattaya, tourist police planned the sting operation and had an informant offer to buy 0.40 gram of the drug from Brown at the price of Bt1,000.

The tourist police, who were staking out at the hotel’s car park, arrested the American once he delivered the drug to the informant at a room of the hotel.

Brown was charged with having narcotics in possession for sale and with being an alien staying in the kingdom without visa.

The authorities have been stepping up crackdown on drug trafficking in this popular seaside city, notorious as drug sin city. At the end of last month, Bang Lamung deputy district chief Praphan Prathumchompu led police and troops to raid the Planet Earth Beach Club on Jomthien Beach and rounded up about 50 foreign tourists and Thai women for drug checking. The tourists were freed after no drug trace was found in their urine.

However, the authorities found a tiny bag of ice on Saji Phanupong, 26, the shop cashier, and found another tiny bag of the drug hidden in a seat with no one claiming its ownership.

Praphan said the raid was made after local residents complained that the club played loud music for foreign tourists who were having drug party there every night.

Groundhog day???

Deja vu

When will he learn, its not a playground for farangs, no matter how big you are , they can always outsmart you and before you know, trouble will be knocking on your doors.

Welcome to Thailand where the 'Tourist Police' act as 'The Drug Squad!' What next? The Tourist police arresting foreigners on campsites for having a swiss army knife?

Another foreign criminal in Thailand . Thousands more like him arrive yearly. Pattaya ! What a shock! Fish in a barrel if Interpol would ever get their act together

When will they learn ? NEVER ! Hope they make a good example of him. He will likely be allowed back in as soon as he does his time. Thailand has a knack at allowing foreign criminals in. Passport Control just turns their heads.

When will he learn, its not a playground for farangs, no matter how big you are , they can always outsmart you and before you know, trouble will be knocking on your doors.

Another foreign criminal in Thailand . Thousands more like him arrive yearly. Pattaya ! What a shock! Fish in a barrel if Interpol would ever get their act together

Pattaya is one of the most awful so called tourist venues in Asia as far as I am concerned.

Full of scammers and con men such as this guy plus not a place to take a family.

The guy has history.

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2015/02/american-massage-parlour-owner-in.html

Yes he was beaten up by another foreigner. He was a victim of a beating and then of entrapment for a pathetically small amount of a common recreational drug by 'Tourist Police.' There are real crimes and injustices in Thailand that the police and Tourist police could be dealing with....not this nonsense. It's a criminals waste of money, time and manpower.

Another foreign criminal in Thailand . Thousands more like him arrive yearly. Pattaya ! What a shock! Fish in a barrel if Interpol would ever get their act together

Pattaya is one of the most awful so called tourist venues in Asia as far as I am concerned.

Full of scammers and con men such as this guy plus not a place to take a family.

Pattaya. It's pretty good actually. Popular and a with wide variety of attractions and activities to suit families and couples. It is increasing popular with the latter two groups, especially those who are more adventurous and open minded and want a bit of fun on their holiday. As for scammers and con men............never seen any like you get in London in Soho. 99% of the time in Thailand you get what you pay for and only really stupid or greedy people get ripped off or scammed.

Another foreign criminal in Thailand . Thousands more like him arrive yearly. Pattaya ! What a shock! Fish in a barrel if Interpol would ever get their act together

Pattaya is one of the most awful so called tourist venues in Asia as far as I am concerned.

Full of scammers and con men such as this guy plus not a place to take a family.

Lived in Pattaya 30 Years and have not met any foreign scammers or con men yet. I also raised a family and have had many families come to visit. It is what you make of it like anywhere. Pretty sure Bangkok has some undesirables as does CM or Phuket, London, New York etc.

Edited February 7, 201511 yr by Keesters

Welcome to Thailand where the 'Tourist Police' act as 'The Drug Squad!' What next? The Tourist police arresting foreigners on campsites for having a swiss army knife?

What's so puzzling about that? The Tourist Police are police, what do you expect them to do?

The guy has history.

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2015/02/american-massage-parlour-owner-in.html

Yes he was beaten up by another foreigner. He was a victim of a beating and then of entrapment for a pathetically small amount of a common recreational drug by 'Tourist Police.' There are real crimes and injustices in Thailand that the police and Tourist police could be dealing with....not this nonsense. It's a criminals waste of money, time and manpower.

You're right, law enforcement is a waste of money, time and manpower.

Too bad the Thais can't set up sting operations to bag Thai bank money launderers, counterfeit property racketeers, major pimps, Thai human traffickers. But they can set up a sting to entrap a small time foreign ice street dealer. Thai priorities.

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Another foreign criminal in Thailand . Thousands more like him arrive yearly. Pattaya ! What a shock! Fish in a barrel if Interpol would ever get their act together

Interpol has a lot better things to do than chase people selling grams of ice in Thailand...sorry but it's true..

Can't understand why you think that this small amount of ice is not worth to be taken care of. This American didn't sell ice cream, but ice. If this 0.4g would have ended up in your kid's hands you would rethink your comments on ".. just a small amount..." No Pardon for drug dealers

Fatfather

Welcome to Thailand where the 'Tourist Police' act as 'The Drug Squad!' What next? The Tourist police arresting foreigners on campsites for having a swiss army knife?

What's so puzzling about that? The Tourist Police are police, what do you expect them to do?

The clues in the name TOURIST Police.

Edited February 8, 201511 yr by MRDave

Another foreign criminal in Thailand . Thousands more like him arrive yearly. Pattaya ! What a shock! Fish in a barrel if Interpol would ever get their act together

Pattaya is one of the most awful so called tourist venues in Asia as far as I am concerned.

Full of scammers and con men such as this guy plus not a place to take a family.

You have obviously only experienced the worst side of Pattaya.

.4 of a gram. Glad to see finally cracking down on the "Mr. Bigs" in the drug trade.

Another foreign criminal in Thailand . Thousands more like him arrive yearly. Pattaya ! What a shock! Fish in a barrel if Interpol would ever get their act together

Pattaya is one of the most awful so called tourist venues in Asia as far as I am concerned.

Full of scammers and con men such as this guy plus not a place to take a family.

Pattaya. It's pretty good actually. Popular and a with wide variety of attractions and activities to suit families and couples. It is increasing popular with the latter two groups, especially those who are more adventurous and open minded and want a bit of fun on their holiday. As for scammers and con men............never seen any like you get in London in Soho. 99% of the time in Thailand you get what you pay for and only really stupid or greedy people get ripped off or scammed.

"99% of the time in Thailand you get what you pay for and only really stupid or greedy people get ripped off or scammed."

Yes, if someone is looking to purchase drugs or anything else obviously illegal, it's a little disingenuous to complain about having to deal with scammers or con men.

Can't understand why you think that this small amount of ice is not worth to be taken care of. This American didn't sell ice cream, but ice. If this 0.4g would have ended up in your kid's hands you would rethink your comments on ".. just a small amount..." No Pardon for drug dealers

Fatfather

What a silly comment. People buy recreational drugs by their own choice. They don't 'end up in kids hands' by accident.

"The authorities have been stepping up crackdown on drug trafficking in this popular seaside city..."

Gotta love they way they said that. It's almost a double negative, but not quite.

There seems to be so many people on this site who openly condone the use of drugs and drug dealing, in my opinion, you are as bad as this piece of drug dealing vermin that this post is about. Lets see how liberal your attitude is when one of your kids is taking drugs.

There seems to be so many people on this site who openly condone the use of drugs and drug dealing, in my opinion, you are as bad as this piece of drug dealing vermin that this post is about. Lets see how liberal your attitude is when one of your kids is taking drugs.

We seen how good the war on drugs is working in the USA.. even there now they are in some states legalizing weed. Who knows what will legalized in the future. Personally I hope all drugs will legal. Let people decide what they do themselves. However if they are stealing or violent then arrest them. However given the amounts of drug already used and how many incidents there are its not that bad.

I am from the Netherlands and have extensive experience with drugs in the past. I know of many of my friends who used "hard" drugs and guess what none started stealing or ended up addicted. Some are business owners others employees.

A family that smokes together stays together! If my kids ended up as smack addicts I would blame myself or them the but not the dealer. Your kids might turn to drugs Jim to deal with your 'weird alternate reality. ..