Crime
Mother of Canadian Arrested for Spray Painting Graffiti in Chiang Mai Says Her Daughter is “Very Afraid”
CHIANG MAI – The mother of Canadian tourist 23 year-old Brittney Schneider, who faces up to 10 years behind bars after allegedly spray painting graffiti on Tha Pae Gate wall in Chiang Mai has told Canadian media her daughter is really afraid.
Her mother, Tara Schneider in Grande Prairie, Alberta in Canada, told Canadian CTV News Channel that her daughter is “very afraid.” She added that this was “very out of character for her. She’s never been in trouble in her life.”
Although, she had received a voice message from her frightened daughter at 3:30 a.m. on Thursday, a call at that time wasn’t unusual because Schneider had trouble sleeping because of the time difference.
But once she found out what had happened, she said it felt like “bricks of cement dropped on my shoulders. It was awful.”
Canadian Brittney Schneider, left, and British Lee Furlong, second left, stand in front of Tha Pae Gate in Chiang Mai province
Schneider and Furlong were due to fly back to their respective homes in the coming days after spending “a considerable amount of time” in Thailand, Reuters bureau chief for Thailand and Indochina Amy Lefevre told CTV News Channel.
Canadian consular officials have arrived in the city and are speaking with the suspects, according to Global Affairs Canada. A spokesperson says provisions in Canada’s Privacy Act prevents Global Affairs from disclosing any further information.
Schneider said her daughter was intoxicated after going out to a local bar and joining in when others started defacing the wall with a can of spray paint they’d found on the ground.
“She did the same thing because she thought it was cool. She didn’t know it was a monument wall — an important wall,” she said tearfully.
Col. Teerasak Sriprasert, chief of the Chiang Mai police, said that Lee admitted that he wrote “Scouser Lee” on the 800-year old wall, while Schneider told police that she wrote the letter “B” underneath it.
Security cameras on the street appear to show the pair picking up a spray can on the ground and defacing the wall near the Tha Pae Gate in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
At the time of their arrests, the graffiti had already been scrubbed off by city workers.
Why the Steep Penalty?
Authorities hadn’t “seen anything like this for at least a couple of years meaning that no one has dared to spray paint graffiti on this particular wall or any other in the surrounding area,” Lefevre said.
The pair allegedly admitted to police that they had sprayed the message out of drunken revelry. The 13th century Tha Pae Gate is part of an ancient wall that forms a square around Chiang Mai’s inner city.
Because the whole wall is a registered landmark, authorities were offended when they were allegedly caught on camera.
They were arrested at the Mad Monkey hostel after CCTV video of the incident made the rounds on social media, according to Evening Standard.
Schneider’s mother said she was travelling in Thailand alone and has a “passion for travelling” and had made lots of friends travelling around the world.
“Britney is a very likeable person” and called her “very strong,” she added.
Schneider and Furlong are being detained in the city’s provincial court and could remain there for up to 24 hours at which point they’d be allowed to ask for bail.
In a “typical Thai procedure,” Lefevre added that police took the pair back to the previously defaced wall after they had admitted their actions to police. She said that the “routine” action, which looks like a march of shame, would have been the case if it was domestic or foreign-born suspects.
She added that it’s still too early to tell what will happen next but it “seems unlikely” that the pair will face the maximum jail term because of the millions of tourists who arrive in Thailand every year.
Source: CTV News Channel
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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