Crime
91-Year-Old Teaching English & Cooking in Bangkok
BANGKOK – Lorena Mayhugh’s small classroom in Bangkok, Thailand, smells of tacos. She is teaching English to her adult students while incorporating Mexican cooking lessons.
Wearing paper aprons, students chop lettuce and tomatoes and engage in culinary discussions. Forty minutes pass before they realize that instead of speaking Thai, they are learning vocabulary by practicing conversational English.
As one of her older students — a man in his 60s — prepares to leave, he folds his apron and tells Mayhugh, “Every time I see this apron, I’m going to think about this class.”
Mayhugh chuckles as she describes some of her teaching methods. “[Learning English while eating] was good for them and I enjoyed it. I won’t forget it, either.”
Four nights a week, Mayhugh leaves the tiny dorm-style room she calls home and heads to her classroom at the Baptist Student Center in Bangkok. Most teachers at the school are volunteers like Mayhugh, but there’s one major difference. Mayhugh is 91.
She laughs off looks of surprise when people hear her age: “I’m having fun! Why not?”
Mayhugh has been in Thailand 10 years, first as an appointed master’s missionary with the International Mission Board and now as a volunteer. She has taught nearly 3,000 students, mostly professional Thais who come to learn English. She estimates she’s gone through 200 brownie mixes and numerous batches of oatmeal cookies as teaching tools.
When others her age are slowing down, Mayhugh remains active. She’s made the choice to serve, teach and disciple on the other side of the world from her only son and grandchildren.
“God sent me here. This is where I belong right now,” she says. “When He wants me to go back home, I’ll go. When He’s through with me in Thailand, He’ll let me know.”
Despite her vigor, there are days Mayhugh feels the effects of living through nine decades. She’s had a hip replacement, suffered through dengue fever and recovered from a fall. Her eyesight is growing worse from macular degeneration and cataracts. Reading small print is almost impossible.
But her spirit is indomitable. “My hip hurts when I’m sitting at home just as much, so why sit?” she shrugs. “And by now I’ve pretty well memorized the books I teach from, so I don’t have to read them much.”
Since all the apartment doors look alike where she lives, she put a mat outside hers so she can easily identify it. The problem is the trend caught on. “Everyone has their mat out now. But I can still tell which door is mine,” she laughs.
In Bangkok, Mayhugh walks or rides public transportation. Living on the center’s campus offers independence without the upkeep of a house or yard. In a culture where age is deeply respected, people including strangers are always ready to help “Grandma,” a nickname she owns with pride.
Though she misses her family in California, Mayhugh considers her missionary friends and the Thai people she loves as her family. Jai, a former student, and his mother are Mayhugh’s especially close friends. When the three eat out, “Jai orders for me,” Mayhugh says, since she struggles to read menus. “He knows what I like.” Well, except that time he ordered squid egg soup.
Mayhugh’s commitment to serving God began at an early age. Born in 1921 and raised in Missouri, she rarely missed a church event or an opportunity for service. “We went by Model T Ford to church,” she says. “When it was muddy, we went by wagon and when the snow was on, we went by sled!”
After college she married Carl Terwilliger, a pastor, and followed him West to plant churches. In Alaska, Mayhugh used her ongoing passion for missions and served 1958-59 as the Alaska state Woman’s Missionary Union president.
She settled in California, taught elementary school and at age 42 gave birth to their son, Carl Jr. Mayhugh’s husband died suddenly, leaving her to face one of the hardest times in her life as a 48-year-old single mother who didn’t know how to drive.
“Bad things happen to everyone,” she reflects. “When bad things happen, we can get closer to the Lord or we can get bitter.”
She married George Mayhugh in 1971. When he retired from the Marines and she from teaching, they went back to college to become electricians and serve in that capacity at churches.
Both in their 70s, the Mayhughs were appointed in 1973 as Mission Service Corps volunteers through the then-Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board). They traveled throughout California, helping maintain churches and Baptist campgrounds. They were serving at Jeness Park in the Sierra Mountains when George died of brain cancer. Heartbroken, Lorena wondered what the Lord wanted her to do next.
It was while attending a California Baptist Convention meeting in Bakersfield a few years later that she found the answer in an IMB job request for Thailand. In good health at 81, she applied.
“When I read they needed an MK [missionary kid] teacher for three boys, I knew as well as I knew my name. I knew I was supposed to go.”
Her assignment was to teach Martin and Carrie Chappell’s sons.
“She just loved our boys from the get-go,” Carrie Chappell says. Charlie, now 21, remembers how Mayhugh taught him and his brothers by telling stories from her own life — being a teenager during the Dust Bowl, living through the Great Depression and losing a brother during World War II. She and the boys had science fairs, cooking classes and graduations.
“She’s a grandma to the boys,” Chappell says. “We all just love her and think she’s amazing.” On a recent trip to the U.S., Mayhugh traveled an extra 2,600 miles to attend Charlie’s college graduation, an event she says she just couldn’t miss.
Mayhugh loves her life in Thailand but eventually would like to move closer to her son in California, where she’s already discovered Vietnamese and Hispanics who might need her English tutoring. She’s also praying about taking classes at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.
And she’s got other plans as well — places she’d like to travel, people she’d like to meet. In the past two years, she has hiked the Great Wall of China with Jai and snorkeled in the Andaman Sea off Thailand with her son. She doesn’t think her adventures are complete.
“Jai thinks I’ll live to 120, but I don’t know about that,” Lorena quips, as if thinking through the possibility.
“We can’t stop. When God is finished with us, He’ll take us home.”
–30–
Marie Curtis is an International Mission Board writer.
Police in Northern Thailand have arrested a fellow officer as he was being ordained at a temple in Ngao district of neighbouring Lampang province.
Pol Lt Col Bandit Khonkan chief inspector from the Hang Dong police station was disrobed and taken to the Chang Puak station in Chiang Mai. He was arrested on charges of running a call centre scam gang in Chiang Mai Province.
According to Thai Media Chiang Mai Provincial Police Region 5 obtained an arrest warrant for Pol Lt Col Bandit on Friday from the Chiang Mai Provincial Court for procuring illegal telecom equipment, setting up a station and using public airwaves to run a telecommunications business without permission.
Pol Lt Col Bandit reportedly told investigators that he was not the ringleader and was only a member of the gang with Chinese partners.
His arrest followed the apprehension of his 26-year-old daughter, Miss Wanuchapond, 26, and three others during raids at three housing projects in Chiang Mai on Friday, Pol Maj Gen Weerachon Boontawee, deputy chief of Provincial Police Region 5 told Thai media.
During the raids police police discovered around 12 GSM gateways, or SIM boxes, which are devices used for converting cellular networks into mobile phone numbers used domestically.
The chief inspectors daughter Miss Wanuchapond told the arresting officers that she was paid 8,000 baht a month at each of the three locations for renting thr rooms and monitoring devices.
She claimed she had no idea what the devices were and accepted the job because the pay was attractive.
Police investigators working with telecom regulators used a special tracking device to monitor the gang’s communications and learned that its base was in Myanmar opposite Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai.
The call center gang used the GSM gateways to make calls over the internet to scam people in Thailand out of million of baht.
The GSM gateways transmitting signals via SIM boxes to convert them into domestic phone numbers, duping victims into thinking they were being called from Thai government agencies.
Pol Maj Gen Weerachon said that each SIM box held 32 SIM cards, with a capacity of up to 300,000 calls a month. The seized devices had made fraudulent calls over 3.6 million times.
He said the their investigation is ongoing and they are working to track down the remaining conspirators, including Chinese and other Thai suspects.
Authorities are still deciding whether Pol Lt Col Bandit will be dismissed from the force, he said, adding that so far, no other officers are known to have been involved.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Settha Thavisin has authorized the establishment of an emergency cyber center operated by the Royal Thai Police to combat transnational crimes committed by call center gangs along the Thai border in Chiang Rai province.
On July 19, Prime Minister Settha Thavisin directed the Center to combat information technology crimes. The Royal Thai Police (Royal Thai Police) will crack down on call center gangs in Myanmar, Laos, and along the border.
His directive comes as call center gangs ratchet up their scams to defraud people of their money, causing concern among Thais and jeopardizing the country’s economic and social stability.
Related Police News:
Machete Wielding Man Shot an Killed by Police in Chiang Rai
https://www.chiangraitimes.com/chiangrai-news/machete-wielding-man-shot-an-killed-by-police-in-chiang-rai/
Immigration police officers have arrested four Colombian nationals in connection with a series of home burglaries at luxury housing complexes in the Bangkok metropolitan area and Chiang Buri Province.
Pol Maj Gen Panthana Nuchanart, deputy commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, told a press briefing that three of the suspects were apprehended in Nonthaburi Province and the fourth in South Pattaya, Chon Buri Province.
According to the Bangkok Post, the Colombians were charged with stealing conspiracy and seized around 3 million baht (US$82,500.00).
According to Pol Maj Gen Panthana, the criminals rode motorcycles through housing estates, scoping out the properties and waiting for the owners to depart before committing their crimes.
He stated that all four of the accused denied any involvement in the home break-ins, but the arresting squad discovered evidence that implicated them.
Police called to home invasion
Meanwhile, police were dispatched to a luxury housing development in Tambon Nong Prue, Chonburi Province, after a Chinese man was attacked during a house invasion.
When they arrived, they discovered the house owner, Mr. Qian Peng Yi, visibly scared and with marks from being tied up with a cable. He informed police that three Chinese males broke into his home at 9 p.m., one of whom brandished a gun at him and directed him to his bedroom.
They bound his hands and feet, gagged him with fabric, taped his head, and forced him into the bed. The intruders then attempted to compel him into transferring 10 million baht in cryptocurrencies to them, endangering the life of his 33-year-old cousin who was in a second-floor bedroom.
While they scoured the house in search of riches, Mr. Peng Yi managed to flee and hide; he subsequently observed them leave with his cousin. Officials investigated the property and analyzed security camera footage from the incident and surrounding areas.
Around 9 p.m., a 30-year-old van driver came at the Bang Lamung police station after being contacted by an agency to carry Chinese customers from Pattaya to Suvarnabhumi Airport.
The driver informed authorities that he was supposed to pick them up at a motel about a kilometer from the Chinese businessman’s home. He then drove them to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, arriving at 1 a.m. and receiving 1,800 baht.
The driver took a snapshot of the group smoking at the airport gate and identified one of them as the victim’s cousin. Police suspected coordination between her and the three suspects in her cousin’s heist, who all departed Thailand on the same aircraft.
Other Bangkok News:
Police in Bangkok Discover Six Vietnamese Tourists Dead in 5 Star Hotel
Police in Bangkok Discover Six Vietnamese Tourists Dead in 5 Star Hotel
Crime
Son of Thailand’s Leading Legal Scholar on Corruption Arrested for Running Online Gambling Network
The son of a former senator and leading economist and expert on corruption and gambling in Thailand has been arrested for on charges of running an online gambling network and its payment system.
Police from Thailand’s Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) have confiscated assets worth more than (US$ 11.1 million) 400 million baht.
Narote Piriyarangsan, 33, was arrested following crackdowns in three sites around the city, according to Pol Maj Gen Athip Pongsiwapai, commander of the police Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD).
Mr Narote’s father, Sangsit Piriyarangsan, is an economist who has written articles and books about corruption and gambling. He was one of the appointed senators that were investigating the government’s intention to legalize casino gaming before their terms expired.
Police also detained 39-year-old Narayut Narakaew, the owner of the gambling website 69pgslot.com. The Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the couple for operating an internet gambling service and money laundering.
According to the Bangkok Post, police seized two desktop computers, one laptop computer, 14 mobile phones, 21 bank passbooks, 53 ATM cards, and four high-end cars — a Ferrari 926 GTS, an Aston Martin, a Lexus, and a Subaru — totaling more than 400 million baht.
Police launched the inquiry after discovering the online gambling site, which accepted funds via an automatic deposit-withdrawal system through bank accounts and deposits in the AskMePay system. Players scanned the VPay QR code as well as the QR codes for Heng Online 888 or Heng Pay Company.
Police also discovered that payments received via QR code scans were transferred to the account of Heng Pay Co and then to the gambling website’s mule accounts using AskMePay, which did not use banks’ face recognition scanning. An inquiry indicated a monthly turnover of approximately 5 billion baht.
According to investigators, the website has been up and running for around four years, with the payment mechanism in use for roughly eight months.
According to Pol Maj Gen Athip, Mr Narote owns the gaming website’s payment systems and is the director of Heng Pay Co. After gathering evidence, authorities requested arrest warrants for 14 people.
Thailand does not allow almost any kind of gaming. Even though the law doesn’t say anything specific about online gaming, it is still considered gambling. The country has pretty strict rules about gambling. Thai punters can bet on the national lottery and horse races, but they can’t bet on any other types of games.
But it’s not a secret that there is a huge illegal gaming business in Thailand, even though it’s illegal.
The illegal casinos, online betting shops, underground lotteries, and pop-up bookies that take bets on everything from cockfights to Muay Thai make a shadow economy that is worth billions of dollars every year.
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Thailand’s Cyber Crime Police Raid Top Cops Home Over Gambling Websites
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