Thailand News

Thailand news, politics, business, crime, and lifestyle—get breaking updates from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and beyond. Stay informed on Thai society, economy, tourism, and expat life with The Thaiger.

  • Bangkok Police seize over 5 million baht of fake brand products from Indian mafia store | Thaiger

    Bangkok Police seize over 5 million baht of fake brand products from Indian mafia store

    Bangkok Police conducted a raid on counterfeit band name products at a store on the third floor of MBK shopping mall in Bangkok today and seized goods worth over 5 million baht. The store was reported to be operated by an Indian mafia gang called Babu. The Department of Intellectual Property Protection was alerted to the activities of the Babu…

  • Beagles sniff out smuggled Chinese duck at Bangkok Airport | Thaiger

    Beagles sniff out smuggled Chinese duck at Bangkok Airport

    Thailand‘s sharp-nosed sniffer beagles strike again, this time detecting 7 kilogrammes of illegally imported raw duck at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport that arrived on a flight from China. Sniffer dogs from the Department of Livestock’s Quarantine and Inspection Canine Unit were on duty at the airport looking for any illegal movement of live wildlife and animal carcasses when they uncovered the…

  • Wash off the dictatorship: Protesters splash for a cause | Thaiger

    Wash off the dictatorship: Protesters splash for a cause

    For those who love the splashing water of Songkran but wish it was far more serious and political, a protest held yesterday fits the bill. More than 20 protesters from the United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration, a pro-democracy group, gathered outside the Parliament complex to symbolically “wash off the dictatorship” with water. The rally took place the day after…

  • Really Cool Airlines to fly by 2023 close, schedule in June | Thaiger

    Really Cool Airlines to fly by 2023 close, schedule in June

    New carrier Really Cool Airlines is set to take off in Thailand by the end of this year, according to its CEO, Patee Sarasin. The airline will focus on international flights and is expected to help boost the country’s aviation industry, which has been hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. The company will announce its flight routes by the end…

  • Thai businesses expect minimal effect from US Bank collapse | Thaiger

    Thai businesses expect minimal effect from US Bank collapse

    Thai businesses are optimistic that they will experience only minimal impact from the collapse of US banks. A recent survey by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC) interviewed 600 business owners to gauge the economic damage of the US banking turmoil. The survey found that 73.5% believe the effects of the US banking crisis will have only…

  • Passport rip leaves TikTok creator unable to fly to Thailand | Thaiger

    Passport rip leaves TikTok creator unable to fly to Thailand

    A passport rip left a TikTok creator unable to fly to Thailand. Arabella Leat’s holiday plans to Thailand with her mum were ruined due to the small rip on her passport, the UK tabloid Daily Star reported. The young woman was left disappointed and unable to board her flight after airport staff deemed her passport unfit for travel. Arabella posted a TikTok…

  • Angry Thai man crashes car into PPRP election poster | Thaiger

    Angry Thai man crashes car into PPRP election poster

    An angry Thai man was prosecuted for damaging an election campaign poster belonging to the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP). He deliberately crashed his pickup into the poster. The suspect’s family revealed he was angry at the party because his request for unemployment compensation was rejected. With the General Election set to take place on May 14, every political party has begun…

  • German pedophile arrested for producing child pornography in Pattaya | Thaiger

    German pedophile arrested for producing child pornography in Pattaya

    Thailand’s Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) arrested a German pedophile for shooting and distributing child pornography involving his teenage stepdaughter from his home in Pattaya. The 76 year old perverted expat, Wilfried Wilms, was taken into custody on Saturday, March 18 following an alert from the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency, which traced child pornography back to Wilms’s Meet4U and…

  • 3 police arrested for kidnapping Chinese man and Thai woman | Thaiger

    3 police arrested for kidnapping Chinese man and Thai woman

    Din Daeng Police Station apprehended three police officers from Immigration Division 1 yesterday following allegations made by a Thai woman that they kidnapped and extorted 1 million baht from a Chinese man. The three suspects denied the accusations, and one officer involved in the incident is currently on the run. According to the complaint filed by a 38 year old…

  • Regents International School Pattaya announces new school principal | Thaiger

    Regents International School Pattaya announces new school principal

    Regents International School Pattaya is delighted to announce that Ms. Amos Turner-Wardell, the current Head of Secondary School, has been promoted as the new School Principal effective February 2023. For the past 5 years at Regents International School Pattaya, as the Head of Secondary, Ms. Amos has been central to the development and success of the school and her international…

  • 2 killed and 3 rescued in boat collision near Koh Samui | Thaiger

    2 killed and 3 rescued in boat collision near Koh Samui

    A fishing boat and an oil tanker collided near Koh Samui, an island in the southern province of Surat Thani. Three of the five fishermen were rescued, while the other two died. The Fisheries Checkpoint Management Centre Region 7 in Surat Thani notified the relevant departments at 2.20pm yesterday that the fishing boat named Talay Nam Chok 8 (Lucky Sea…

  • SUV crashes into mall in Thailand, plummets 4 floors into basement | Thaiger

    SUV crashes into mall in Thailand, plummets 4 floors into basement

    An SUV last night somehow crashed into a famous mall located in Pathum Thani province, situated to the north of Bangkok, Thailand. The vehicle then drove over the railings by the escalator and plummeted four floors into the basement. The SUV driver miraculously survived the accident, sustaining only minor bleeding to the head. The crash happened yesterday around midnight at Zeer…

  • Revered Thai monk’s body defies decomposition 20 years after death | Thaiger

    Revered Thai monk’s body defies decomposition 20 years after death

    More than 20 years after revered Thai monk Luang Phu Woraphon Thawitan passed away, his body remains displayed in a glass case at his temple in Khon Kaen province, northeast Thailand. Not only has the deceased monk’s body not decomposed – defying science – but his skin has turned emerald green, reports Sanook. Yesterday, Phra Khru Sri Pattarasan, the current…

  • 10 top destinations near Bangkok for summer and Songkran 2023 | Thaiger

    10 top destinations near Bangkok for summer and Songkran 2023

    As the summer season and the Songkran Festival approach Thailand next month, The Thaiger team recommends 10 top destinations to visit in April to escape the hustle and bustle of the city and enjoy a great water fight. The list includes a wide range of interesting places from waterfalls, seas, mountains, and spectacular natural scenery. With Songkran Festival set to…

  • Hong Kong tourist narrowly survives bungee cord snapping midair in Thailand | Thaiger

    Hong Kong tourist narrowly survives bungee cord snapping midair in Thailand

    Distraught onlookers thought the moment a Hong Kong tourist’s bungee cord snapped after he leapt from a height of ten storeys in Pattaya, Thailand, would surely send him plummeting to his death. But, he survived. One of Mike’s colleagues went first and had a blast, and Mike was up next, raring to go. The staff tied the bungee cord to…

  • 3 police attacked by 30 vendors while inspecting product piracy at a Thai market | Thaiger

    3 police attacked by 30 vendors while inspecting product piracy at a Thai market

    A group of 30 vendors attacked three officers from the Ang Thong Police Station while they were conducting a product piracy raid at a Thai market in the central province of Ang Thong on March 16. The police officers later filed a complaint about the assault while the vendors claimed they thought the officers were fake police. The deputy inspector…

  • Police free woman imprisoned by lesbian lover after a row | Thaiger

    Police free woman imprisoned by lesbian lover after a row

    Police last night freed a woman imprisoned by her lesbian lover after a tempestuous row in Buri Ram. The captive woman said she does not want to press charges against her emotionally charged girlfriend. Police were alerted to the confined woman’s predicament by a neighbour yesterday and a patrol car was sent to the building where she was imprisoned at…

  • 13 year old called cops after pedo father imprisoned and raped teenage sister | Thaiger

    13 year old called cops after pedo father imprisoned and raped teenage sister

    A 13 year old girl sought help from the police after her pedo father imprisoned her 17 year old sister in her bedroom in the Lak Si district of Bangkok where he repeatedly raped her. The perverted man denied the rape accusations despite evidence to the contrary on his two mobile phones. Two traffic police officers encountered the 13 year…

  • Aussie dad gets into fistfight with monkeys on Ko Phi Phi in Thailand (video) | Thaiger

    Aussie dad gets into fistfight with monkeys on Ko Phi Phi in Thailand (video)

    An Australian dad got into a fistfight with a gang of monkeys on a Thailand beach after they attacked his one year old son. No pistols at dawn followed but it got quite feisty. Riley Whitelum and his wife Elayna Carausu, along with their two sons, were on the Ko Phi Phi Islands when the incident occurred. While relaxing on…

  • Officials in Thailand say radioactive caesium-137 is contained, scholars disagree | Thaiger

    Officials in Thailand say radioactive caesium-137 is contained, scholars disagree

    The radioactive caesium-137 cylinder that went missing from a power plant in Prachin Buri province, central Thailand, was found to have been melted and turned into red soot with other scrap metal at a smelting factory around 10 kilometres away from the plant, sparking major health concerns for people in the area. Whether the caesium-137 will cause health problems like…

  • Bail denied for Chinese gang accused of extorting 3.2 million baht from student in Thailand | Thaiger

    Bail denied for Chinese gang accused of extorting 3.2 million baht from student in Thailand

    A court in Bangkok denied bail to three Chinese nationals accused of kidnapping and extorting 3.2 million baht from a Chinese student studying for a Master’s degree in Thailand. The court cited the seriousness of the charges filed against them and their high flight risk. Two Chinese men and one Chinese woman are accused of four charges including detention and…

  • Not flushing? Man finds 23kg python in his toilet | Thaiger

    Not flushing? Man finds 23kg python in his toilet

    We have all experienced a sense of panic when we flush a toilet and the water doesn’t go down, and it becomes even worse when something unexpected comes up instead. However, it is an entirely different level of terror when what appears in the toilet bowl is the head of a giant python. Snakes are common enough in Thailand that…

  • Thai woman accuses RTP of kidnapping, extorting 1 million baht from her boss | Thaiger

    Thai woman accuses RTP of kidnapping, extorting 1 million baht from her boss

    The Royal Thai Police (RTP) are in the headlines once again for all the wrong reasons after a Thai woman accused RTP officers of kidnapping and extorting 1 million baht from her boss in the Din Daeng district of Bangkok. Police reported that initial CCTV footage revealed that two of the men in the criminal group looked similar to Immigration…

  • Thailand to build 7 new airports | Thaiger

    Thailand to build 7 new airports

    The Department of Airports (DOA) plans to spend 50 billion baht on the development of seven new regional airports in Thailand, in Nakhon Pathom, Bueng Khan, Mukdahan, Kalasin, Phayao, Phatthalung and Satun provinces, reports DailyNews. The department wants to boost connectivity and provide more travel options for Thais and foreign tourists. New airports around Thailand’s lesser-known locations have been in…

  • Health officals urge caution after 2 people die from eating horseshoe crab | Thaiger

    Health officals urge caution after 2 people die from eating horseshoe crab

    Health officials in the southeastern province of Trat issued warnings to the public after two people died from consuming mangrove horseshoe crabs. Five others have been hospitalized after eating the lethally poisonous crustaceans. Horseshoe crabs are a staple food in the region, but the mangrove variety, also known as the round-tail horseshoe crab, is highly toxic and has been blamed for…

  • One man’s motorcycle trip from Bangkok to Korat with his 11 cats goes viral | Thaiger

    One man’s motorcycle trip from Bangkok to Korat with his 11 cats goes viral

    The heartwarming story of a Thai man, known as Uncle Samsen, and his 11 cats went viral on social media after he travelled with his pets in his sidecar motorcycle from Bangkok to the Isaan province of Nakhon Ratchasima or Korat. The route was nearly 300 kilometres and took almost five hours of travelling. Some Thais know Uncle Samsen, 65 year old…

  • IDC predicts smartphone market in Thailand to remain stagnant | Thaiger

    IDC predicts smartphone market in Thailand to remain stagnant

    The Thai smartphone experienced a significant decline in 2022 and is expected to remain stagnant due to inflationary concerns, rising interest rates, and a lacklustre growth forecast for the Thai economy, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). The IDC reported that 16.6 million smartphone shipments were made in 2022, marking a 21% decline from the previous year and the…

  • 14 teens arrested after woman killed in knife attack | Thaiger

    14 teens arrested after woman killed in knife attack

    Police officers arrested 14 teenage boys after one of them allegedly murdered a female motorcycle rider on a road in Nakhon Sawan, in the central part of Thailand, on Saturday night. Officers from Paisaree Police Station managed to arrest the teenage gang after they fled the scene separately on March 18. The students, aged 16 to 17, go to a…

  • Thailand’s phanaeng curry voted No.1 best stew in the world | Thaiger

    Thailand’s phanaeng curry voted No.1 best stew in the world

    Global cuisine website TasteAtlas awarded Thailand‘s phanaeng curry the top spot in their updated list of 100 “best-rated stews in the world,” followed by Japanese kare (No.2) and Sichuan Hot Pot (No.3). Massaman curry also gained a spot in the top 10, voted No.8 best-rated stew in the world. Many Thai dishes made the list, including collective “Thai Curry” (No.14),…

  • Homeless man arrested in China to reunite his family in Thailand | Thaiger

    Homeless man arrested in China to reunite his family in Thailand

    A homeless man arrested in China four years ago is believed to be a Thai citizen. A family in Lamphun province in the northern part of Thailand believe he is their long-lost brother who went missing 29 years ago. Chinese immigration police detained the man, who was later identified as 45 year old Prakob Chuasaeng, in 2019 in Tianshui City, Gansu…