PHUKET: Police have admitted they are powerless to prevent motorcycle and car rental operators from holding foreign tourists’ passports as collateral against potential damage to rented vehicles. The news comes as the island’s top police officers try to stymie the fallout from international news reports branding Phuket a key source for stolen passports in the wake of the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 last Saturday (story
PHUKET: The skies parted to deliver scattered showers across the island late this afternoon to break Phuket’s lowest recorded rainfall between the months of January and March for 30 years. Governor Maitri Inthusut yesterday morning chaired an annual meeting at the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation-Phuket (DDPM-Phuket) office to plan water usage strategies for the dry season.
PHUKET: Two Canadian sisters who died mysteriously on the popular resort island of Phi Phi in 2012 may have ingested toxic amounts of a lethal pesticide called aluminum phosphide, reports Canadian news network CBC. The highly toxic pesticide is used to control bedbugs in some holiday hotels in Asia and may have contributed to the deaths of Audrey and Noemi Belanger, as well as several other tourists, according to new evidence from an investigation by CBC’s the fifth estate and Radio-Canada’s Enquete
PHUKET: Police are still looking for an explanation as to what caused a car driven by a Danish expat to fly off the road and plunge into an appliance store in Thalang on Thursday evening. Police arrived at the scene, about 250 meters from Baan Nai Klam Mosque on the southbound side of Thepkrasattri Road, at about 6:30pm. The 50-year-old driver, Per Erichsen, was in a daze, said Chatree Chuwichian of the Thalang Police.
PHUKET: An Australian expat died early yesterday morning in Phuket after allegedly driving his motorbike one-handed. “The accident happened at about 1:50am in the morning. Eyewitness accounts described Wayne Anthony Stone driving his motorbike at high speeds with only one hand holding the handlebars,” Navin Petchan of the Kamala Police told the Phuket Gazette.
PHUKET: The new police and transport office safety checkpoint for buses about to cross over Patong Hill netted 16 drivers who tested positive for drugs in its first day of operation this week. Officers tested 75 drivers at the new checkpoint, set up near the Thung Thong police checkpoint on Pra Barami Road (map
PHUKET: Patong police announced today that Myanmar workers living in Patong will be arrested if they are found outside of their camps after 10pm. The curfew is in response to the murder of a Thai man by a group of Myanmar nationals early Tuesday morning in Patong. “Construction operators typically keep the passports of their workers.
PHUKET: The driver of a Phuket tour bus avoided a serious accident on Patong Hill this morning by running the bus off the road before driving down the steep slope on the east side of the hill. Bus driver Sutthichai Pohad was ferrying about 20 Chinese tourists from Patong to Phuket Town at about 8am when he realized the brakes were failing, explained Sakchai Chunyong of the Thung Thong Police
PHUKET: Customs officers at Phuket International Airport on Tuesday arrested a drug mule attempting to smuggle 7 million baht of ya ice (crystal methamphetamine) from China into Phuket. The 37-year-old woman, Pornphat Wattanachaisen, was on a watchlist for possible involvement in drug smuggling when she departed Bangkok to China, said Phuket Airport Customs Director Montira Cherdchoo. “We learned that Ms Pornphat left Hong Kong on Tuesday via AirAsia Flight 2965.
PHUKET: Photos posted online of a foreigner killing a small shark at Kata Noi Beach prompted outrage, but the act was legal, a marine official said.