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Fishermen arrested for illegal trawling
RAWAI: Chalong Police yesterday stopped four fishing boats and arrested their 16 crew members for fishing illegally in inshore waters. Yootthana Malakarn of the Phuket Fishery Department received an early-morning call from an informant to say that four fishing boats, thought to be dual-trawling, had been seen in the area between Maiton Island and Aow Island, to the south of…
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Boffins identify source of “yellow rain”
PHUKET: The Provincial Health Office today confirmed that the “yellow rain” that has fallen on a small area along Chao Fah Nok Rd over the past 10 days or so is pollen. Dr Boonrieng Chuchaisangrat, chief of the Health Office, told the Gazette that samples of the “rain” were passed to the Phuket branch of the Songkhla Regional Medical Science…
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German tourist found dead in hotel room
NAI HARN: A German tourist was yesterday found dead, sitting in front of the dressing table in his hotel room. Pol Capt Sanae Panmee, Inspector of the Chalong Police Station, named the dead man as Jürgen Roland Preiss, 40. He had arrived in Phuket on January 11 for a two-week holiday and was staying at the Jungle Beach Resort in…
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Health Office to probe mystery “yellow rain”
PHUKET: People on Chao Fah Nok Rd have been astonished and not a little disturbed over the past 10 days by a stinking yellow rain that has fallen, apparently from the sky, for one or two minutes every evening. Samples of the yellow liquid, which falls over an area of about 100 meters in diameter, are to be collected this…
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Greenpeace ship to visit Phuket
PHUKET TOWN: The fabled Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, will arrive in Phuket on Thursday to launch the environmental organization’s “Toxic Free” campaign. This will be the ship’s first visit to Phuket. Thara Buakumsri, a member of Greenpeace (Thailand), told the Gazette that the 55-meter vessel, carrying a multinational crew of 33, will arrive in the morning, tying up at…
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German manager held for theft of 5m baht
BANGKOK: Dirk Krebber, the 38-year-old German manager of Aqua Master (Thailand), a dive supply company in Patong, surrendered to police in Bangkok on Thursday to answer questions over the disappearance of five million baht from Aqua Master’s bank account. Sirikate Narin, the company’s assistant managing director, told the Gazette that shortly after a photograph of Krebber was shown on a…
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Two arrested for selling ya bah
PHUKET: Weerasak Tantiratthanapitak, 20, and Sunipol Boonnak, 24, were arrested in Phuket Town yesterday following a sting operation when they attempted to sell methamphetamine (ya bah) to plainclothes police. According to Pol Maj Amnuoy Kraiwootthinan of the Phuket Town Police Station, the police then went to the suspects’ apartment on Surin Rd. In the apartment they found 110 tablets of…
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Phuket in drive to stop whale shark killings
PHUKET: A move to protect whale sharks in Thai waters has been started in Phuket after reports of whale shark killings were brought to the attention of the local office of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). “TAT Phuket was informed by dive operators that they had witnessed whale sharks being hunted several times during their dive trips. The animals…
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Police make reporting lost documents easier
PHUKET TOWN: Police here have opened three new booths to make it easier for local people and tourists to report the loss of documents. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the new booths are at the intersection of Phang Nga Rd and Phuket Rd; in front of Suan Luang Park on Chaofa Rd; and at the public…
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Police probe missing five million baht
PATONG: Police are looking for the German manager of Aqua Master (Thailand), a dive supply company in Patong, in connection with the disappearance of five million baht belonging to the company. Police told the Gazette that on December 30, Dirk Krebber, 38, went to the Siam Commercial Bank branch in Patong and withdrew funds needed to meet the company’s year-end…
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Patong bars raided for staying open late
PATONG: Kathu police raided several bars and nightclubs in Patong yesterday morning for staying open past the 2 am official closing time. Among the venues raided, said Pol Col Kokiat Wongwarachart, Superintendent of the Kathu Police Station, were Hollywood 99 Pub, Up-2-You Bar, Night Moves, Night Station, The Shark Club, VIP Bar, Chicago’s Fun Pub, as well as several other…
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Easy visas “are encouraging foreign criminals’
BANGKOK (AFP): The easing of visa restrictions as part of Thailand’s efforts to boost tourism has made the country an attractive base for international criminal gangs, officials said yesterday. Songkram Chuenpibal, deputy secretary of the National Security Council, said instituting a visa-on-arrival system for many countries allowed unwanted elements to filter through. “There are Mafia gangs, drugs-trafficking gangs and money-laundering…
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Business registrations soared in 1999
PHUKET TOWN: Business confidence soared in Phuket last year, with the number of companies registering in the province leaping by more than 50% compared with 1998, and comfortably exceeding even the pre-Asian-Crisis levels of 1996. Figures compiled by the Phuket Commercial Registration Office show 505 limited companies were registered last year, compared with 332 in the previous year, 311 in…
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Woman gets eight years for ‘enslaving’ Thais
LOS ANGELES (AFP): A Thai was sentenced today to more than eight years in prison for illegally bringing three Thai women into the United States and forcing them to work in slave-like conditions. Supawan Veerapol, the 55-year-old common law wife of Thailand’s former ambassador to Sweden, used her diplomatic connections to bring the women into the country to work in…
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Thailand to consider lethal injection for executions
BANGKOK (AFP): Thailand’s cabinet will tomorrow consider whether to introduce lethal injections for executions in response to mounting claims that the current use of firing squads is barbaric. “People are horrified that convicts are currently shot to death,” Deputy Interior Minister Vattana Asavahem told reporters this afternoon. The idea of lethal injections was floated in 1996 but never reached the…
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Finnish tourist arrested for overstaying visa
KARON: A 40-year-old Finnish tourist was arrested in Karon yesterday for overstaying his visa – by eight months. Pol Lt Teerawat Liumsuwan of the Chalong Police Station told the Gazette that the tourist, whom he named as Arto Mikel Kivela, arrived in Phuket from Finland on March 10 last year and stayed at the Sompit Bar in Karon Center. Having…
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Thailand launches drive to discredit Hollywood film
BANGKOK (AFP): Thailand has launched a worldwide campaign to discredit the Hollywood movie “Anna and the King”, which censors have banned as an insult to the monarchy and a distortion of history, weekend news reports said. The foreign ministry has issued guidelines to its embassies saying 20th Century Fox’s claim the film is based on historical events “was almost completely…
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Taxmen behind target for first two months
PHUKET: Two months into the tax year, the Phuket Provincial Revenue Office has reported that revenue collected is already behind budget, and down by 13% from the same period of the 1998/1999 tax year. Officials reported that tax collected had fallen from 350.3 million baht in October and November 1998 to 305.4 million baht in the same period of 1999.…
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Tourist dies in head-on bike crash
KARON: An Australian youth was killed and a Swedish tourist hospitalized early yesterday morning when their motorcycles collided head-on near Le Meridien Phuket resort, on the road between Patong and Karon. Pol Lt Teerawat Liumsuwan of Chalong Police Station named the dead man as Simeth Julian, 18, of Melbourne. He said the Australian was riding a red Honda Dream toward…
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Thai customs nab Japanese drug trafficker
BANGKOK (AFP): Thai Customs officers charged a Japanese woman with drug trafficking this afternoon after she was arrested just before boarding a Thai Airways flight to Osaka, officials said. Customs officers searched Tamaki Nagayama, 29, and found 1,300 amphetamine tablets strapped to her stomach. Nagayama confessed she was trafficking in drugs and helped by friends from Thailand and Myanmar, said…
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Occupancy rates improve dramatically
PHUKET: Occupancy rates at most of Phuket’s hotels are looking much better than two weeks ago. Almost all of the hotels contacted by the Gazette today report that cancellations have dwindled and bookings are picking up. Our table illustrates what has happened over the past two weeks. Generally, at this time of year, Phuket’s hotels budget for occupancies of 75-80%.…
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Police seize copies of banned Hollywood movie
BANGKOK (AFP): Thai undercover police arrested two men suspected of producing pirated copies of banned Hollywood movie “Anna and the King” which censors have ruled disrespectful to the monarchy, police said this morning. Rawiphat Sawatwattawong, and Phallop Yoosabai, both 24, were detained near Bangkok’s Pantip Plaza, a software and entertainment center, late yesterday. They were found in possession of 200…
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Long jail terms for Krabi tourist killers
KRABI (AFP): The two teenagers arrested for the murder of an Australian tourist in Krabi have received long jail terms after a nine-hour court session in which both pleaded guilty. The older of the two, 19-year-old Pairoj Yoamyat, was initially sentenced to death for robbing and murdering Cheree Cobcroft, 24, whose naked body was found tied to a stake near…
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German tourist killed “by shark’
BANGKOK (AFP): A German tourist has died after apparently being bitten by a shark in the waters off Koh Pha Ngan, police said today. The man, identified by police as Stephan Olaf Kahl, 35, from Hamburg, bled to death from a 10-centimeter-long cut on his right arm and a 15-centimeter cut to his right calf. “He was pronounced dead before…
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Phumisak Hongyok returns as mayor of Phuket
PHUKET TOWN: Phumisak Hongyok was again selected mayor of Phuket Town by the city’s Municipal Council today at its first meeting since the December 25 council elections. Mayor Phumisak, and the three newly appointed vice-mayors, Aryoot Tarnsiriroj, Somjai Suwansupapana, and Jongrak Nareukatpichai, are all from the Young People’s Party, the party with the most seats on the Municipal Council. Khun…
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Gambling once again tops monthly crime list
PHUKET: Statistics released today by Phuket Provincial Police, covering crimes committed between December 1 and 25, showed that 144 people were arrested for gambling in the course of 116 raids. Drug possession was next on the list with 122 arrests. There were 46 arrests for robbery and theft. Prostitutes were arrested 31 times and 19 people were held for possessing…
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Gruesome toll on Thai highways
PHUKET: The Public Health Ministry says at least 300 people died and 19,433 were injured in auto accidents in Thailand over the holiday period. Ministry officials speculate that many of the accidents were caused by drivers relying on amphetamines to stay awake. During the four-day New Year’s holiday here in Phuket, 261 people were injured and 9 killed in car…
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Night on town costs tourist 160,000 baht
PHUKET: A Swedish tourist says that spending New Year’s Eve with a prostitute cost him 160,000 baht. The victim, Sven Anders Fireballs (not his real name), 32, met a woman in a bar on Soi Bangla. After drinking and chatting, the two decided to go into Phuket Town where they checked into the 999 Motel on Kra Road for a…
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Bitterness expressed in bad taste
BANGKOK (AFP and the Phuket Gazette): Thailand’s opposition leader has given arch-rival Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai food for thought this New Year — seven boxes of iodised eggs, often used to ward off retardation in children. General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh said the eggs were “to nourish his brain and improve his intelligence,” according to local media reports today. “Eating the eggs…
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More accidents, fewer deaths on the island’s roads
PHUKET TOWN: The latest year-to-date figures, those to December 20, show that 172 people, 153 of them on motorcycles, have died on Phuket’s highways this year. Last year at this time, 186 people had died, 164 of them on motorcycles. But there is no basis for optimism in these figures. In November, traffic accidents increased by 14% from the same…
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