Thai Police Want All Farang Bridge Gamblers to Report Within One Week

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In a nation wide crackdown Thai police want all Farang Bridge gamblers to report to them within one week.

After a world wide laugh fest in social media over their arrest of elderly Bridge "players" in Pattaya, the police stated they are not fooled by the obvious gambling that is taking place.

The police insist that it was necessary to conduct the raid with 50 men because criminal elements like these are dangerous and Farangs are highly unpredictable. The police saw a group of "chopper" style motorcycles parked three blocks away and this only added to their suspicions that some sort of gang activity was taking place.

As for the age of the Farangs gamblers, Thai police are well aware of elderly Farang women going berserk while trying to shop at Tesco Lotus. The Thai police stated "We were ready for anything".

"Bridge" is obviously a code word for Poker. And the points system is the way the gamblers divide their winnings. Thai police know from their own experience that no one would sit for hours playing cards without some money changing hands.

The police went on to say as no money was found during the raid, it must be stored off site, and divided up later.

Raids will be conducted not only in Pattaya, but in cities like Hua Hin, where nests of Farang Bridge gamblers could be found at golf course club houses or other locations.

Police are also looking into the Bangkok Bridge Festival being held April 5th-9th sponsored by PTT Group. This type of corruption involving big corporation must be stopped.

[NeverSure]

[mikebell]

I sent the following to the Bangkok Post. Looked for it this morning but there was no room for it amongst all the others:

I do not often write a reader's letter but the treatment of pensioners by the Pattaya Police has galvanised me into action. Thirty two predominantly old people (one an eighty four year old lady) were arrested, bundled into baht buses and kept in jail for twelve hours. They were released at 3 am after posting bail of 5000 baht and signing a charge sheet written in Thai.

I was a member of that club for a number of years and can testify no money ever changed hands. The gambling charge was dropped so an archaic law from 1935 was resurrected and they were charged with having more than 120 cards!

We are told that Pattaya police have a backlog of 600 cases pending yet they have time to seek new cases.

We are told that TAT are trying to attract more quality tourists. All of those arrested on long-term visas will have a minimum of 65,000 baht to spend per month.

The World's press are running this story ridiculing the police efforts; the laws of Thailand and by extension the military government. In most countries this would have been dismissed with a smile about wrongful information from an informant irrespective that the same information is published in the local press and has been for 15 years.

I suggest public apologies should be made; compensation for twelve hours incarceration should be paid and some/all who ordered the raid be sacked.

Mike Bell
author