Chinese Criminals' International Scams & Kidnappings

By Richard S. Ehrlich

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Beijing and Bangkok are trying to stop criminal gangs from China scamming and kidnapping Chinese travelers in Thailand, causing frightened Chinese to cancel their holidays to this tourist-friendly tropical country which they now perceive as wild and dangerous.

"I have instructed security agencies to raise the level of security for tourists," Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said in January after two high-profile Chinese disappeared in Thailand and emerged after being trapped in Myanmar.

"Tourism is the country's main source of income. I don't want it to be affected."

Scammers even imitated President Donald Trump's voice in a failed attempt to convince Ms. Paetongtarn to send money to Hong Kong.

Organized crime gangs from China allegedly influence Thailand's interior ministry, police, and immigration department to get lengthy Thai visas, invest in property, run nightclubs, marry Thais, smuggle drugs, and use this relatively laidback Southeast Asian country as a hedonistic sanctuary, officials said.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The horrific suffering of five Thai farmworkers held by Palestinian militants ended with their freedom on January 30, alongside three released Israelis, after intense diplomatic efforts frayed relations between Bangkok and Tel Aviv.

Surprisingly, throughout the 15-month hostage crisis, tens of thousands of Thais continued to flock to the coveted higher-paying agricultural and construction jobs in the Jewish state after the October 2023 attack.

The hostages' desperate families have been waiting in anguish in this Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian nation, praying at temples and frantically trying to get officials to help them.

"It is confirmed, my son did not die," a weeping Wiwwaeo Sriaoun, mother of one freed hostage, said.

"I will hug him when I see him. I want to see if his health is OK.  I am worried about his health," she told Agence-France Presse while watching the news at their home in northeast Thailand's Isaan region.

Only one Thai hostage Pinta Nattapong, along with the bodies of two dead Thais, remained in Gaza.  The dead were identified as Sudthisak Rinthalak and Sonthaya Oakkharasri.

In the wake of catastrophic fires that have devastated Los Angeles, America’s top anti-green Luddites——Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom—-met at a southern California airport, where  Melania greeted the Governor with exceptional warmth.  

 In service to the coal, oil, nuke and gas burners at the core of climate chaos, her husband’s“drill baby drill” war is devastating a green-powered future built on wind turbines, solar farms, battery storage, electric cars, micro-grids and more.

Trump’s alleged rival, Gavin Newsom, has escalated that attack in California.  In 2022, he betrayed a state-approved plan to transcend the states last two atomic reactors with a renewable-based energy system set to compete in global markets.  

But forcing Diablo Canyon’’s prolonged operations, Newsom risks a radioactive apocalypse that would dwarf the Los Angeles fires, while currently costing the state at least $11 billion in over-market charges through 2030.

Simultaneously, Newsom’s hand-picked Public Utilities Commission has hit the state’s rooftop solar industry with a multi-billion-dollar wave of bankruptcies, costing at least 17,000 jobs.

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