Scooting trouble: Luxembourg man ‘wheeled’ in for illegal Bangkok tour guide gig

Tourist Police officers arrested a man from Luxembourg for illegally working as a tour guide after he was found leading clients around Bangkok on electric scooters.

The arrest followed a tip-off from Yongyos Samransook, head of the Inspection and Supervision of Travel Agency and Tour Guide Registration Division under the Department of Tourism. Yongyos reported that the foreign man was unlawfully operating as a tour guide in Bangkok.

Tourist Police officers later identified the foreign man as a 44 year old Luxembourg national named Nico Alexis David Gamel Frederich. They closely monitored Frederich’s activities until they could confirm the validity of the complaint.

Officers observed Frederich arranging for his clients to rent electric scooters and then leading them on tours around Bangkok’s Old Town, also known as Rattanakosin Island.

Officers tracked him back to his base at the travel agency Thailand Explorer, located on Soi Thep Tham Temple in the Phra Nakhon district of Bangkok, where they arrested him.

Frederich was taken to Chana Songkhram Police Station for legal proceedings. He was charged under Section 86 of the Travel Agency and Tour Guide Act for illegally working as a tour guide. The penalty for this offence is up to one year’s imprisonment, a fine of up to 100,000 baht, or both.

In a related case from September, Tourist Police officers arrested an Indonesian woman who was operating illegally as a tour guide at Wat Pho, a popular tourist site in Bangkok. She had been offering travel packages to 133 Indonesian tourists.

In August, a Chinese national was arrested in Pattaya for illegally guiding clients at the Pattaya Floating Market. He had been advertising his services on the TikTok app, targeting Chinese nationals interested in visiting Pattaya.

Additionally, two South Korean nationals were arrested in Chiang Mai in June for offering unauthorised personal travel packages to foreign tourists at a rate of 10,000 to 15,000 baht per person. Both had also overstayed their visas.