Last laugh: Frenchman arrested for laughing gas sale in Phuket
Police arrested a Frenchman at a house in the Patong sub-district, Kathu district, Phuket, yesterday, February 16, for selling nitrous oxide, better known as laughing gas.
Officers from Patong Police Station posed as customers and ordered laughing gas from the 30 year old Frenchman, whose name has not been disclosed. The suspect directed the officers to collect the item from his residence in the Patong area.
Upon their arrival, the police identified themselves and arrested the suspect. A search of the property uncovered illegal items, including 23 canisters of nitrous oxide. Each canister contained 2,100 grammes of the gas.
According to a report on the Facebook page Newshawk Phuket, the Frenchman sold the laughing gas at 5,000 baht per canister.
The suspect faces two charges including:
- Section 12 of the Drug Act: Selling medicine without a permit. This offence carries a penalty of up to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to 10,000 baht.
- Section 7 of the Foreigners’ Working Management Act: Working illegally in restricted occupations. Penalties for this include a fine ranging from 5,000 to 50,000 baht, deportation, and a two-year ban on applying for a work permit.
This arrest follows a series of recent incidents involving French nationals. In January, two Frenchmen were arrested in Phuket after a video showing them brutally assaulting a Burmese man went viral on Thai social media.
The Burmese victim was reportedly an employee of the attackers, and the altercation was allegedly related to him being late for work.
Also in January, Thai police arrested another Frenchman in Bangkok for sharing explicit content on social media. The videos featured Thai women, who were reportedly unaware that their sexual activities had been recorded and distributed online.
Five other Frenchmen were arrested in Phuket after evading a police checkpoint while riding motorcycles. Their arrests followed the release of dashcam footage showing them fleeing the checkpoint, which was widely shared on Thai social media.
Earlier this month, a French motorcyclist was arrested in Phuket for illegal modifications to his motorcycles. He was detained alongside two Russian men involved in similar offences.
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