Kerryd

Right off the bat the math doesn't add up. It says "5 tickets" but claims 90 mil in winnings. Then it says she already cashed in 2 tickets and collected 60 mil and would cash in the third at the end of the month. The only way that works is if she had 3 "sets" of 5 tickets that all had the same numbers on them. Each "set" of 5 would then be worth 30 mil. However the chances of buying 3 identical sets of 5 tickets with the same number on them are probably less than the chances of actually winning the lottery at all. Also prizes must be claimed within 2 years of the draw date. The story claims she kept the winning secret for over 2 years so the tickets would be void now. And there's no way the village headman would even know if "the money had been withdrawn". Withdrawn from where ? He would not have any access to any of her banking information (unless she'd borrowed money from him and gave him her ATM card as security - in which case he would know whether or not she'd deposited those huge winnings and he'd have taken what was owed to him - with interest of course). Got to agree with the old lady at the bottom of the article. Sounds like a put-on to attract attention. She's probably had more visitors (at all hours) in the last week than in the last 2 years combined.

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/vietnam-pattaya4.mp4?_=1

Same here ! I had to do some googling when I first saw the story to make sure it wasn't the same person. You can bet a lot of people never bothered to check though. And yeah, it's common for criminals to suddenly "long for home" when they become ill and have a choice of ending up in a Thai prison (and "gov't healthcare") or a nice air-conditioned facility with a much higher quality of medical care. Like the former "godfather of Chon Buri" who did a runner after being released from prison on bail (where he'd been sent after being found guilty of arranging the murder of a political rival). He was charged in a land fraud case so that let him apply for bail (Thai law) to fight the charges and - of course - immediately disappeared and didn't reappear until many years later - when he was very sick and needed to go to a (good) hospital. And the wannabe terrorist Joshua Boyle from Canada. Stages his own kidnapping so he can join the terrorists his former wife had praised so highly. Spent 5 years trying to convince everyone he was being held in Afghanistan when he was actually in a Haqqani safe house in Pakistan. But when one of the daughters he had while a "captive" got sick - he couldn't take her to a Pakistani hospital so they arranged to be "spotted" by American drones. He needed people to believe he was still a captive so he wouldn't be arrested and thrown in prison when he returned to Canada. (Not that terrorist-loving Trudeau would have ever considered that of course.) So his terrorist buddies drove him to a drop off point where they had tearful farewells and then he was "rescued" by the Pakistani Army who were sitting there waiting. And supposedly it's why a certain former PM criminal on the run suddenly decided to return "home". Having "his people" running the gov't certainly made it easier. (Thought you have to wonder because it's not like he couldn't have afforded the best medical care available in the UAE which is probably top notch based on all the "money" in that place. I doubt you'll find too many "doctor's degrees from a back alley medical schools in Delhi" working in Dubai hospitals.) He sure did make a miraculous recovery once he got home though !

(Duplicate post.)

Apparently the "I used to be one of Epstein's high-end Escort/Nude models" look still plays. Yeah. Look up her history. She was working as a (sometimes nude) model and apparently her "agency" would provide "classy" women to parties attended by the rich and powerful. People like Trump. The women would be there to be "arm candy" and be "available" to the men at those parties if they caught the eye of any of them. (Basically what Epstein and Maxwell were accused of. Arranging "women" for rich and powerful men.) And Melania did get noticed by a "rich person" at one of those parties in 1998. Apparently Trump's wandering eye spotted her and when his wife (#2) went to the bathroom he "slipped" Melania his private number. (Another article states he was at that party with a different "date" - who wasn't his wife either. She also claims - now - that he asked for her number and she refused and asked him for his number instead so he gave her a couple of his private phone numbers.) Supposedly they began dating in 1998 and Donald divorced #2 in 1999, but didn't marry #3 until 2005. She was pregnant with their son in 2006 while Donald was banging former Playboy models and porn star actresses. It was somewhat hilarious when Trump was elected. You used to be able to find photos of Melania on a whack of Facebook pages. Suddenly, he's the President and the photos are gone. I found one and tried to post it in a group and the instant I hit "post comment" - it was deleted. Instantly. Tried a couple times. Tried renaming the pic so it wasn't even remotely close to the original filename. Didn't matter. As soon as I hit "post" it would be instantly deleted by Facebook. And it's not hard to imagine why Epstein so quickly "suicided" himself in jail. She didn't have the pull to get it done, but Trump did and you can bet his name was all over Epstein's "client lists". I suspect her name was in his books as well. Makes you wonder if those lists will ever see the light of day or if they end up buried along with Hoffa, Kennedy's brain and all the original photos and negatives from the "moon landings". (Yes, NASA claims the "originals" were "accidentally destroyed" many years ago.) (Insert spooky conspiracy movie music here.......)

I would trust Al Jazeera reporting about as much as I'd trust Fox News. Qatar plays fast and loose on both sides of the fence. Yes, they are a "US Ally" and host a large US Military contingent - which also keeps them safe from attack. Remember when a small group of "rebels" started an uprising against Assad in Syria ? The "West" initially supported them - until they found out that the majority of the rebels were actually members of different terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and other hard-core fundamentalists. Qatar continued to support them. It created a lot of controversy at the time because factions like Turkey and Qatar were supporting the terrorists while being "allies" of the US (and others) who were opposed to those same terrorists. (And lol - it seems the "Syrian" rebels - initially - were actually part of a CIA attempt to overthrow Assad - because he'd rejected a proposed "Saudi-Qatar" oil pipeline that would have gone from Saudi Arabia, through Jordan and Syria and into Turkey.) Qatar (and Al Jazeera) have also supported the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood (and it's various chapters) for decades (financially and politically). Note that after the "Arab Spring" and the Muslim Brotherhood's ouster in Egypt in 2013, Saudi Arabia and a number of GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council which includes the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait) cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood. Except Qatar of course. (Note that Qatar supported the Arab Spring uprisings, including the ones in Libya (which was also about oil) and Syria. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and other "US Allies" brutally suppressed those uprisings in their own countries). Qatar also supports Hamas financially and politically and then has the ****s to say: "the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, said "We support all Palestinian people. We believe Hamas is a very important part of the Palestinian people." The Emir told CNN, "We don't fund extremists." Note: "More money flows from Qatar to Hamas than any other country." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_terrorism ) I see when reading up on the conflict in Yemen that Qatar initially opposed the Houthi (Iranian backed Shi-ite rebels) but changed their stance. Seems they've been at odds with their fellow countries and even had relations with them suspended on numerous occasions over their (and Al Jazeera's) actions. "Saudi Arabia and other countries have criticized Al Jazeera and Qatar's relations with Iran. Qatar explained that it had provided assistance to some opposition groups, including Islamist groups (such as the Muslim Brotherhood)." Qatar also tried to claim that "Al Jazeera" had been "hacked" at one point when they published an article praising Iran as a "stabilizing force" at the same time Iran was backing the Houthi rebels as well as Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists (and Assad in Syria of course). Qatar also hosted Taliban delegations and Doha, the capital of Qatar, was where the US surrendered to the Taliban when Trump's gov't agreed to stop attacking the Taliban and pull out of Afghanistan in what is now known as the "Doha Agreement". Qatar has been accused to allowing numerous "terrorist financiers" to live openly and freely in Qatar despite being on terrorist watch lists in many other countries. Qatar simply shrugs it's shoulder's and claims they don't recognize many of those organizations as being "terrorist". It seems in 2014 Qatar's "Terrorist Watchlist" had exactly - zero names on it. And if you recall when the current Gaza crisis started - just after Hamas attacked Israel and murdered over 1,200 people - reporters showed a number of people wearing blue body armour with "Press" badges trying to shoo other reporters away from certain houses and even hospitals. Those "other" reporters weren't reporting or recording anything but were really concerned about legitimate press taking pics/videos of them. Why ? Because they weren't actually "Press". They were wearing the same gear that real reporters wore to act as "human shields" to protect Hamas Safe Houses and weapons caches (and to try and keep the real press from seeing Hamas fighters entering/leaving the hospitals they had lied about having tunnels and bunkers hidden under). Some were flat out Hamas fighters/supports and some probably claimed to be "freelance Al Jazeera" reporters when it's convenient (or expedient). Hamas knew that Israel would be reluctant to attack any target that had reporters close by because of the fallout they'd get if they killed any (real) journalists. Hamas has routinely used human shields to protect it's rocket launchers whenever they attack Israel. A favoured tactic of Hamas for decades is to set up rocket launchers on top of hospitals, apartment buildings and in school yards. Because they want Israel to retaliate after they've fired rockets at them and they are hoping Israel will bomb those launchers and end up killing lots of innocent civilians so Hamas can parade them in front of the cameras to score sympathy and Public Relations brownie points. Al Jazeera also uses "reporters" to write propaganda anti-gov't articles in places they want to stir up dissent. Like after the military overthrew the corrupt Muslim Brotherhood gov't in Egypt less than a year after they took power. They had "Egyptian" correspondents writing anti-gov't propaganda and when those reporters were arrested - they whipped out their (Canadian or other country) passports and cried to their "new" countries to save them. (One of them was an Egyptian immigrant to Canada who, once he had his magic "get out of foreign jail free" passport, returned to his native Egypt to work for Al Jazeera. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison for writing anti-gov't propaganda articles for Al Jazeera and, naturally, whipped out his shiny new Canadian passport and begged Canada to save him. He even offered to renounce his Egyptian citizenship. So Egypt accepted and deported him to Canada where, no surprise, he started slamming the gov't that helped free him and announced he'd immediately be trying to reclaim his Egyptian citizenship.) And you see it in the news and in movies - people wearing "press" can often get into places others can't - especially if they know the people at the gates. Good way to move people, weapons and ammo around. Especially if one side are "good guys" who don't want to do anything that might result in "bad press" and the other side don't give a c-rap about the rules.

Also note. While the beer bars at that spot have (real) female employees, it is a favourite area for a lot of ladyboys to hangout as well. There's public bathroom just down the path and a lot of (people) traffic at that spot. Where the foreigner seemed to have his stuff is the bar on the left side of the path, which is where a lot of those ladyboys used to hang out (back when I used to spend too much time down there). (As mentioned, the owners are friends from a local "nice" motorcycle club.) He seemed to have been riled up by someone at the bar on the right-side of the path. I can't understand what the woman doing the filming was going on about though. She kept saying something about the "soi" and him being alone ? There's obviously more to the incident than is shown in that clip. Still can't see where he supposedly punched her and left her with a bloody face.

I didn't see any thing in that clip about him assaulting anyone. The story says he initially assaulted another foreigner and then punched the woman who was doing the filming. I've watched the clip half a dozen times and there is NO sign of him hitting anyone. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=928474172300457&__tn__=F That clip shows NO assault of any kind. I looked and that seems to be the only clip on that "Social Hunter" page about the incident. This happened beside the beer bar across from the old Marine Disco. Friends of mine actually own (lease) those bars. They used to be called the "Lucky Stars Bar (1, 2 and 3). The video starts with the guy standing just outside the metal poles they have in the middle of the little alley that runs between Walking Street and the Marine Hotel in behind. (Past where the Blues Factory used to be.) There's a brief glimpse of the Peppermint sign on the left as she pans around with the phone. I see a bunch of people trying to get between the foreigner and someone he was arguing with. Then he starts taking his stuff (smokes, lighter, etc) and putting them into his bum bag. He's an English speaker but could be from a number of countries. I get the impression he was having an argument with someone off camera. He NEVER looks at the woman doing the filming who he supposedly punched. At the end she seems to say "OK" and then walks away.

Khalid is not a "traditional" (as in - formerly from the UK) Canadian name but Canada hands out citizenship and passports to half the world's population in an attempt to get people to "like" them (and to rig voter demographics in ridings the Liberals need additional votes in). Syrian refugee ? Kosovo refugee ? Fake Afghan "translator" ? Fake Nigerian "asylum seeker" ? Just go to Canada, live free on the Liberal's generosity for 3 years while you pad you bank account(s) and then BOOM ! You pretend to swear a "Citizenship Oath", get your Citizenship card and Canadian passport and go back to your home country a rich person (by comparison). (Sheesh, you don't even have to appear in person to swear your oath anymore. You can do it online from literally anywhere - and have a translator tell you what to say. Or just have someone else entirely stand in for you.) Khalid is probably an "Indian" name (as in India, not Indigenous). There are probably more "Indians" in Canada than "African Canadians". Sheesh, "Little Potato" Trudeau's first Defense Minister (Harjit Sajjan) was a guy born in India who migrated to Canada when he was 5. His 2nd woke Defense Minister was Anita Anand who was born in Canada - to parents who migrated from Sri Lanka and Punjab (India). (And shocker - people are just finding out now that more than a couple of his MPs may/are working for foreign gov'ts or Intelligence agencies.) The leader of the NDP party is Jagmeet Singh, also born in Canada (from parents who also immigrated from Punjab). 90,000 baht in a hotel safe and then fall asleep with 2 hookers in the room ? Rookie move. And it was probably more like 9,000 baht but maybe someone was thinking that they'd be "reimbursed" however much they claimed to have lost. Like people who claim they had a bunch of gold necklaces stolen though they couldn't afford to buy a beer for themselves. Surprised he didn't claim his passport(s) and plane ticket had been stolen as well. Favourite trick of people who've run out of money - or overstayed their 30 day stamp. Cash in the plane ticket, sell the passport at a pawn shop. Claim they were stolen, get "emergency travel docs" and a plane ticket from family/friends and hasta la vista suckers ! And who flies to Thailand to pick up African hookers ? I remember days gone by when I used to spend far too much time on Walking Street (which was far more entertaining than any "reality TV show). You'd see the Uzbeki hookers trolling the bars looking for old white guys sitting alone and once in awhile you'd see a group (3-4 usually) of "Africans" strolling from one end of Walking Street to the other and back again every hour or so. And they were scary ! They were not "petite" or even friendly looking. They looked more like a war party searching for prey. (Chatting with different (Thai) bar owners, it seems the main customers for the African girls were - Thai men. When you think about it, an African girl in Thailand is as exotic to Thais as a blonde-haired, white-skinned girl would be in India or Africa or the Middle East). And yeah, hotel safes are notoriously easy to crack. If you think about that, you realize that hotels would have to know how to crack the safes because they'd probably have to reset a dozen of them every week from customers who lock them - on purpose - before checking out. And once one hotel worker knows the code, everyone knows the code.

Many Western countries won't extradite anyone if they face the death penalty in a foreign country. Even if that country agrees to waive the death penalty, the accused's country still has to decided if the foreign country's case has merit. Normally the country requesting the extradition has to basically prove their case in the accused's country's court to get an Extradition approved, which could then still be appealed. (Or they at least have to prove to a court that they have sufficient evidence to support a trial and that the evidence is "submissible". Which can be an issue because what is "submissible evidence" in Thailand may not be "submissible" in Norway or Canada or some other countries.) In the case of Rakesh Saxena for example, he fled to Canada with his stolen billions that caused the Bangkok Bank of Commerce to collapse and caused the "Asian Flu" banking crisis. Thailand wanted him sent back to face trial but they were looking at the death penalty for all the harm he'd caused. Canada refused until Thailand agreed to take the death penalty off the table. But then Saxena, who wasn't in custody because he hadn't committed any crimes in Canada but couldn't travel because his passport had been confiscated, was able to use his stolen fortune to hire the best lawyers who kept appealing every extradition order the courts approved. And while his lawyers were doing that, Saxena was running "boiler room" and "call center" scams in Canada and helping to finance an aborted coup in Sierre Leone. (A company Saxena owned that traded on the Vancouver stock exchange, Diamondworks, was going to help finance Sandline International who contracted Executive Outcomes for most of their mercenary force. In exchange, the "new" gov't in Sierre Leone would grant exclusive - and very expensive - diamond mining concessions to Diamondworks.) Saxena was able to live a rich lifestyle on his ill-gotten gains for over 13 YEARS until finally the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear his last appeal and he was finally sent back to Thailand. (In Sept 2022 Saxena was sentenced to 335 years in prison however the maximum sentence is only 20 years. He was also sentenced to 10 years in June 2022 in another fraud case. Safe to say he's going to be in Bang Kwan until he dies of old age as he was already 70 at the time he was sentenced.) Depending on your crime, often times you may be better off doing a runner and never looking back.

Keep in mind - THIS IS THAILAND. Not "old Blighty" or "Aus" or "murica". In Thailand if you are arrested for a crime you are taken to a police station where they will inform you of what you are being charged with - and how much your BAIL is. Because in Thailand, you can get bail in almost any case so you can be free to defend yourself against the charges. And even if you are already in jail for something like murder and you get charged with something like "land fraud" you can apply to be released from prison on bail so you can fight the new charges !! Which is what the father of a former Pattaya Mayor (and a Bang Saen Mayor and a Chon Buri governor) did many years ago. And, naturally, did a runner as soon as he got out. And in some cases you can be released on bail but the police keep your passport. And in other cases - you can get your passport back too ! Remember the case in Phuket not long ago where the one guy supposedly forged his business partner's signature so he could take over business and cut his old partner out. If I recall, the forger was released on bail and then fought to get his passport back as well. Can't recall if he was successful. So yeah, it's not really hard to imagine a foreigner getting released on bail and then doing a runner. Especially if the police didn't have his passport (or gave it back to him for some reason) and he split before they realized he was gone. I mean sheesh, if you're in Pattaya and need to get out of the country quick it's less than 2 hours to the airport, buy a ticket on the first flight out somewhere far away and 2-3 hours later you're buckled in and watching Bangkok fade into the distance. By the time the authorities realize you've done a runner, you're in Hong Kong on your way to Sidney. Or in Delhi on your way to Amsterdam. (Even if the police have your passport, depending on your Embassy, you could possibly get "Emergency Travel Documents" that would get you through Immigration and onto a plane before anyone realized you were gone.)

Tourism accounts for about 20% of the GDP and foreign tourism is about 12% of that. And note that Thailand's economy did NOT crash and burn even when they completely shut down the (foreign) tourist industry completely and restricted domestic tourism as well. Yes, a lot of businesses closed. A lot of people were out of work. A lot of people went back to their villages. And a few weeks later most of them were working at other jobs. Maybe not as glamourous or well paying, but still work. I know one girl who was a dancer in Baccara who went home and ended up working in a CP chicken factory. So it's not like 20% of the country suddenly starved to death. And 2 years later everything was pretty much back to normal. (I haven't checked to see if that girl went back to Baccara or is still working in the chicken factory.) Tourism is a huge revenue source for the country - but the "sex" part is NOT the main driving force - except for the old, fat, white single males from Western countries of course. The same people who often think THEY are the only reason Thailand even has tourists because when they look around their favourite beer bar all they see is other old, fat, "white" guys like themselves and they have NO idea that there's 10s of MILLIONS of other tourists in the country that will likely never even go near a Pattaya beer bar on their holidays.

On one hand they are whining about too many tourists coming here. On the other hand, they are easing visa restrictions for many countries and proposing to double the "visa exemption" period to attract MORE tourists. On another hand, they want to gouge those tourists by adding yet another surcharge on their ticket prices. But another hand wants to cancel the idea because it may reduce the number of tourists. I expect the next thing will be an increase of prices - for foreigners - at national parks and historic sites. Maybe the ones that charge foreigners 5 times more for a ticket will increase the price and then charge 10 times more while the ones already charging 10 times more will also increase their price and charge 20 times more ? Like Khao Kitchakut did a couple years ago. 20 baht ticket for Thais, 100 for foreigners. Then it went to 20 baht for Thais and 200 for foreigners. I guess foreigners were breathing too much air and taking too many pictures (or not throwing enough money into all the money traps they've set up at the top). Khao Yai and Khao Phra Vihan for example charge 40 baht for locals and 400 for foreigners. I haven't looked at the arrival numbers recently. Before the covid crisis, Thailand received something like 39(+) million "arrivals" in 2018 I think it was and was expecting close to 40(ish) million in 2019. I looked up those numbers a couple years ago when the gov't first announced they were planning on adding another surcharge to ticket prices because "foreigners" skipping out on their hospital bills had cost those hospitals (most of which were PRIVATE hospitals) nearly 300 million baht. I calculated that they only needed to add a 10 baht surcharge to tickets to recover that "lost" money and then some. So what did the gov't decide ? They wanted a 300 baht charge ! 30 times more than they said "foreigners" had stiffed the hospitals for. (It sounds like they got a lot of negative publicity and pushback so have cancelled the increase. For now.) So if they could handle 40 million+ arrivals back in 2019, they should be able to handle at least the same numbers now. It's not like they're suddenly facing 60 or 70 million arrivals in the last year even with the changes to visas and visa exemptions (that haven't even happened yet).

The confusing nature of the reporting probably came from talking to someone who saw a part of the story and then someone else who saw more of it from a bit earlier. It sounds like one of the Chinese men was trying to drag a female "entertainer" into the bathroom for nefarious reasons. She was trying to resist and attract the attention of some staff to come help her. Which is where someone saw a Thai man getting involved with the Chinese man and maybe thought he was the one the Chinese guy wanted to bump fuzzies with when it was actually one of the staff trying to separate the Chinese guy from the girl. Can't believe the one Thai guy saying he aspired to join the Army though. Most people I talk to seem to think that's the "option of last resort" if you can't find any kind of paying job elsewhere.

You can say the same about almost any men from any country when they are in a foreign country. Except maybe Aussies. They're dicks at home and abroad ! But seriously. Arabs in Thailand. Yanks anywhere. Brits anywhere. French/German/Swede/Bosnian. They go to a different country and it's like they think the rules don't apply to them anymore. Or if they do something they can just escape back to home and disappear. Or that their country will bail them out. Expect a LOT more stories about the Chinese in the years to come. They've been slowly digging their way into the country the same way they've done to Cambodia, Myanmar and a number of other countries from SE Asia to the coast of Africa.