Bangkok News

Bangkok news, politics, business, crime, and nightlife—stay updated with breaking stories, events, and expat updates from Thailand’s capital. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted Bangkok news source.

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  • Event Round-Up – April 2019

    Event Round-Up – April 2019

    by The Sponsorship Experts – Paul Poole (South East Asia) The first ever ASEAN Gastronomy Tourism Fair will kick off on April 9-10 at CW Tower Ratchadapisek Bangkok. Hosted by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, it is the first time all 10 member states of ASEAN will come together to build a strong foundation for gastronomy tourism in the…

  • Three Samut Prakan residents arrested with 868 kilograms of marijuana

    Three Samut Prakan residents arrested with 868 kilograms of marijuana

    Three men have been arrested with a whopping 868 kilograms of marijuana hidden in two houses in Samut Prakan, south-east of Bangkok. Police held a media conference to announce the arrest of two 33 year olds, Somporn Kimya and Supachai Neesungnone along with an 18 year old Thawatchai (surname withheld). Metropolitan Police Lt Gen Sutthipong Wongpin says police seized the…

  • Police hunting for murder killed and buried man in cement in Bangkok

    Police hunting for murder killed and buried man in cement in Bangkok

    PHOTOS: Siam Ruamjai Pu-in Foundation Police are hunting for a suspect who killed a man and buried him in cement in a drum in Bangkok. They say they’re seeking a 47 year old caretaker of a construction business in Bangkok’s Bang Khen district following the Tuesday night discovery of the body of his 38 year old distant relative and colleague…

  • Anti-Junta bloc announces coalition with at least 255 seats

    Anti-Junta bloc announces coalition with at least 255 seats

    by Kas Chanwanpen The Pheu Thai Party’s de facto leader Sudarat Keyuraphan has announced this morning that an ‘anti-junta’ bloc had mustered at least 255 MPs from seven parties to form a coalition government. She said their shared aim was to stop the military junta from retaining power. She also said that negotiations are still underway for more parties to…

  • Motorcycle taxi driver takes daughter along for the ride after wife kicked them out

    Motorcycle taxi driver takes daughter along for the ride after wife kicked them out

    PHOTO: Daily News The story of a motorcycle taxi driver who says his wife kicked him and their daughter out of the house has gone viral in local social media. He says he had paid the mortgage for eight years but the house was in her name and she now had another man. So he left with his eight year…

  • Immigration staff on alert after Thai jeweller bludgeoned to death in Bangkok

    Immigration staff on alert after Thai jeweller bludgeoned to death in Bangkok

    PHOTO: Thai Rath Thai border staff have been alerted after a female Thai jeweller was found bludgeoned to death in a Lat Phrao hotel room yesterday, in the northern Bangkok suburbs. CCTV indicates that a likely suspect is a South African man seen going into the woman’s room. Thai Rath reports that 35 year old Susama Reunrit from Kanchanaburi was found…

  • UPDATE: Election results – what it all means

    UPDATE: Election results – what it all means

    The Election Commission says the official results of the Thai general election will be announced today. By the close of counting last night around 92% of the votes had been counted. The bleary-eyed commission decided to delay the announcement until this afternoon. The EC chairman says the announcement of winners in each constituency had to be deferred because expat’ votes…

  • Counting continues today. Phalang Pracharat and Pheu Thai lead the way.

    Counting continues today. Phalang Pracharat and Pheu Thai lead the way.

    Pheu Thai and Phalang Pracharat were running neck-and-neck last night as ballots were counted around the country. The major parties swapped poll position as the night went on. As of 10.30pm, with 92 per cent of the votes counted, the pro-junta Phalang Pracharat appeared to have beaten Pheu Thai with a total of 147 seats – 92 constituency MPs and…

  • Doubt over ‘majority support’ in survey about drilling near Si Thep historical park

    Doubt over ‘majority support’ in survey about drilling near Si Thep historical park

    Locals are up in arms about results from a public hearing into oil drilling project near the Si Thep historical park in Phetchabun province (just north of Bangkok). They are expressing doubt and concern over results of a public hearing that appear to show support for the project. Thai PBS reports that Mr. Prachuab Narkthien, chairman of the club of…

  • 94 motorcycles seized, 88 arrested – BKK road racing clampdown

    94 motorcycles seized, 88 arrested – BKK road racing clampdown

    Police have arrested 88 motorcyclists and seized 94 motorcycles last night for illegally modifying their bikes for road racing. Pol Maj Gen Nithithorn Jintakanon, traffic police chief of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, called a late night media pack at the Metropolitan Police Division 3 at 11.30pm to announce the arrests. Police set up road checkpoints in Metropolitan Division 3 last…

  • “X-Ray Outlaw Foreigner” arrest numbers hit 8,400

    “X-Ray Outlaw Foreigner” arrest numbers hit 8,400

    by Kittipong Maneerit More foreigners detained and likely to be deported. Seems to be a never-ending supply of illegal foreigners hiding in Thailand. X-Ray Outlaw Foreigner has been an almost weekly campaign to round up and deport overstaying and illegal foreigners over the past two years. Another 490 foreigners were caught this week in the latest Immigration Police dragnet involving…

  • Earth Hour next week, everyone invited to join Bangkok by switching off lights

    Earth Hour next week, everyone invited to join Bangkok by switching off lights

    The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration is inviting Bangkokians to join in “60+ Earth Hour 2019”, by turning off electrical appliances and lights for one hour from 8.30-9.30pm on Saturday, March 30. The rest of Thailand is also invited to join in the annual environmental initiative. The BMA has participated in Earth Hour since 2008 by encouraging Thais to switch off lights to…

  • Two Suvarnabhumi crimes solved by Surachate

    Two Suvarnabhumi crimes solved by Surachate

    PHOTOS: Thai Rath Lt-Gen Surachate Hakparn, the high-profile immigration chief, has announced the solving of two cases at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok. One involved a Thai woman using a passport illegally by adding extra pages. The other was the arrest of members of a Mongolian pickpocketing gang who had been preying on tourists at the airport and on the city’s…

  • Grab rider attacked by local motorcycle taxi driver – police admit the law is not clear

    Grab rider attacked by local motorcycle taxi driver – police admit the law is not clear

    MONTAGE: Facebook/Patiharn Sarikapun Police near Khao San Road admit the law regarding the use of Grab Bike and similar ‘disrupting’ public transport services, is still unclear. They are calling on motorcycle taxis drivers, Grab riders, taxi drivers and Uber to keep calm and contact police if there are any disputes rather than taking matters into their own hands. Daily News…

  • 75 year old mauled to death by pitbulls in Nonthaburi

    75 year old mauled to death by pitbulls in Nonthaburi

    PHOTO: Sanook A family have returned home to find the 75 year old Grandmother had been attacked and mauled by the family’s six pit bull terriers. The woman, named Iat, was lying in a pool of blood outside the house in Bang Bua Thong, Nonthaburi, on the west side of the Chao Phraya, Bangkok. Sanook reports that she had been…

  • BKK taxi driver returns 400,000 baht to Danish tourist

    BKK taxi driver returns 400,000 baht to Danish tourist

    Usually maligned, it’s great to post a good-news story about Bangkok’s taxi drivers. A capital city cabbie is being praised after returning a bag containing 400,000 baht to a Danish tourist. T News reports that Somsri Ralat picked up the Danish tourist and his Thai wife at BKK airport and was taking them to their Hotel in Bang Yai yesterday…

  • Thailand releases Burmese migrant activist, will deport him

    Thailand releases Burmese migrant activist, will deport him

    PHOTO: Facebook/Ye Min- Migrants workers wearing T-shirts with the image of Ye Min wait for his release in front of the court in Samut Prakan, Thailand A prominent Burmese migrant activist Ko Ye Min, one of founders of the Aid Alliance Committee in Thailand, has been released from jail pending deportation by a Thai court. “Ko Ye Min was freed…

  • Porsche driver charged with reckless driving after death of two women

    Porsche driver charged with reckless driving after death of two women

    Bangkok Police have charged a Porsche driver who crashed into a motorcycle, killing two women, one of them also losing her unborn baby and being rushed to hospital, only to die soon after. The accident also damaged a roadside motorcycle-repair shop. The original report from The Thaiger HERE. Police announced that Somkiat Pakdeenok had been charged with reckless driving causing…

  • Reduce Bangkok’s motorcycle death toll by 82% – add dedicated lanes

    Reduce Bangkok’s motorcycle death toll by 82% – add dedicated lanes

    PHOTOS: Daily News Dedicated motorcycle lanes might be the answer to lowering the death toll around Bangkok’s congested streets. A leading engineer has suggested that Bangkok should introduce motorcycle lanes. The Engineering Institute of Thailand’s Dr Thanet Wirasiri says that Thailand has some of the most dangerous driving conditions in South East Asia – and things were getting worse all…

  • Bangkok now in the Top 10 list for most expensive Asian locations for expats

    Bangkok now in the Top 10 list for most expensive Asian locations for expats

    Bangkok has, for the first time, made it into the list of Asia’s top 10 most expensive locations for expats. A rise in average rental prices this year caused by an influx of expats from China and an increase in tourism traffic have hit expats and put the city in 10th place on the annual list, with an average US$3,880…

  • Porsche/motorcycle crash – one dead, another woman loses baby

    Porsche/motorcycle crash – one dead, another woman loses baby

    PHOTOS: Thai Rath | Sanook A Porsche Cayman S has been involved in a collision with two women on a motorcycle at 3am this morning (Saturday). The incident happened in Putthamonthon Sai 3 Soi 5. Thai Rath reports that the carnage happened as the vehicles collided outside a car repair yard. A friend of the women says that 24 year…

  • Ten-wheeler blacks out Bangkok neighbourhood

    Ten-wheeler blacks out Bangkok neighbourhood

    by Kornkamon Aksorndech Businesses and homes in Bangkok’s Lat Krabang area, east of the city centre, have been without electricity this morning after a 10-wheel truck got tangled in power lines on Ramkhamhaeng Soi 129 shortly after 9am. The Metropolitan Electricity Authority officials had the downed lines reconnected within three or four hours and replaced a utility pole that was…

  • Man attacks waitress in BKK bar after complaining about loud music

    Man attacks waitress in BKK bar after complaining about loud music

    A western man has attacked a female receptionist in a Bangkok bar. The incident occurred last Monday in a bar located on Sukhumvit Soi 1. Thaivisa reports that the man, allegedly living in a condo nearby, strolled into the bar to complain about the loud music. When staff informed him that no music had been playing as the bar was empty…

  • Thai arrested for allegedly scamming 3 women out of 212,000 baht 9 years ago

    Thai arrested for allegedly scamming 3 women out of 212,000 baht 9 years ago

    PHOTO: Pol Lt-General Surachate Hakparn, in his capacity as head of Thailand Action Taskforce for Information Technology Crime Suppression, at the press conference announcing the arrest A 60 year old Thai man is now in custody in Bangkok’s Khlong Sam Wa district after allegedly duping three women out of 212,000 baht with a false promise of jobs abroad nearly a decade…

  • Two Nigerians arrested, one still at large, over investment scam

    Two Nigerians arrested, one still at large, over investment scam

    PHOTO: INN News Immigration chief Lt-Gen Surachate Hakparn has announced the arrest of two Nigerian scammers who posed as officials at a financial institution to defraud investors. They were also found to have overstayed their visas. Arrested were 55 year old Emmanual Olichagew and 41 year old Friday Ochiaga at a rented room in Bangkapi, Bangkok. Surachate says that a…

  • Bangkok Police announce two major drug busts

    Bangkok Police announce two major drug busts

    by Khanathit Srihirundaj The police keep seizing the drugs but the manufacturers keep pushing even more out the back doors of their factories hidden in the jungles of the Golden Triangle and north eastern Myanmar. But police in Bangkok today reported that a large haul of narcotics has been seized, including more than 200 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, or “ice”,…

  • He’s an Aussie now. Hakeem al-Araibi becomes Australian citizen.

    He’s an Aussie now. Hakeem al-Araibi becomes Australian citizen.

    PHOTO: Hakeem al-Araibi says “I’m an Aussie now” and is happy to be safe Hakeem al-Araibi, the former Bahraini football player and refugee caught up in a diplomatic tug-of-war in Thailand between Australian and Bahraini officials for two and a half months, has become an Australian citizen. He became an Australian citizen along with 200 other people at a ceremony…

  • Police wrestler avoids jail but gets a hefty fine

    Police wrestler avoids jail but gets a hefty fine

    PHOTO: Daily News Bangkok’s Dusit Court has fined a Honda City sedan driver 8,500 baht for four offences related to an incident caught on video last week. The video showed Pol Lance Corporal Thanakit Wiboonphan trying to clamp a car parked illegally in a no standing zone. Not happy about the situation, the driver argued and wrestled with the traffic policeman.…

  • Top 5 Phuket (and Thailand) hotel trends for 2019

    Top 5 Phuket (and Thailand) hotel trends for 2019

    by Bill Barnett Moving through high season in 2019, hoteliers are starting to look for strategies for the rest of the year in order to not be reliant only on volatile mass markets. The following is C9 Hotelworks read on key trends for the year. Pressure On Demand – Good Hotels Perform, Others Left Out Diving into the numbers, the reality is that…

  • Bangkok woman gives birth in the back of a taxi!

    Bangkok woman gives birth in the back of a taxi!

    PHOTO MONTAGE: Thai Rath So you’re on your way to hospital with a passenger in the back of your taxi who says she’s going to have a baby – soon. Ahead there’s a lot traffic. Taxi driver Pratheep Manop said he picked up a woman aged about 25 – 30 from Pahonyothin Soi 48. She wanted to be taken to Wipharam…