2 Million Baht bribe gone wrong in Thailand.
Hazing rituals gone wrong in Thailand
Fixing Guantanamo? Its already gone dangerously wrong
Killings continue in South Thailand
Political instability in Thailand
Indian Hockey in Chaos: IHF Secretary caught accepting bribe in sting operation
Corruption in Thailand hit a new low. Corruption is a plague in Thailand and is spreading instead of being cleared up. Corruption is common knowledge for tourists or locals, if you need something done you simply give the right person some money and mountains are shifted. You are in a spot of bother with the law you slip some money to the right guy and you receive a get out of jail free card.
If you click on the link above there is an excellent paper written on why corruption is so prevalent in Thailand. The problem here in Thailand is that the very people who are meant to be enforcing laws and keeping bylaws are ignoring their job by accepting bribes and letting rich and wealthy people get richer.
It stinks, really stinks that nothing has been done by any government in power in recent years, there is always talk about cracking down on corruption but it is all talk and no action.
This is a classic example of high end corruption just this past week. A lawyer walks into the highest court in Thailand; he files a writ and then hands over to the court official a bag of pastries. The official looks in the bag and sees a lot of money! 2 million Baht, he asks “What is it for? The reply was “share it amongst yourselves”
This obviously caused a very big stir and now it has come out that Thaksin Shinawatra’s lawyer was responsible for the attempted bribe. The funny part is Mr. Thaksin started out as a policeman and rumours are well known about Thai police and accepting bribes.
It was his family's decision to sell its shares in one of Thailand's biggest telecom groups, Shin Corp, which led to Mr Thaksin's downfall. Just after new laws were passed regarding tax free sales in early 2006, which netted his family and friends $1.9bn, angered many urban Thais, who complained that the Thaksin family had avoided paying tax and passed control of an important national asset to Singaporean investors.
Thaksin’s lawyer Pichit Chuenban said "Our team of lawyers was not involved in the attempt to influence the panel of judges. We feel the Supreme Court will give us justice,"
"We don't need to do that. It was not even in our thoughts. I'm confident the fact-finding panel will find out [the truth] about the attempted-bribery allegation," he said.
Pichit admitted that he and other lawyers had gone to the court on Tuesday, having been assigned by Thaksin and his wife, Pojaman, to file a request to report to the Supreme Court.
After a short investigation a judge hasn’t seen this side of the story and has said "The action by three people, the lawyer, a court official and another man shows the intention to persuade court officials to commit wrongdoing. This action is serious and the court sentences each to six months in jail," it said.
So they have been sentenced to 6 months jail, but who was behind the bribe? Whose money was it? The lawyer had to have been acting upon orders from some influential person. The problem is the person behind the actual bribe won’t be prosecuted by the court, I am sure they have covered their tracks well and also compensated the people who are now going to jail, well.
Corruption is a worldwide problem, especially in developing countries and Asian countries. If penalties were a lot harsher and a completely independent body that had unprecedented powers to pursue corruptors this could make a small change, maybe.
What is corruption like in your part of the world?
