I have been arrested several times in my life.
Age 12 for vandalizing an abandoned missile base overlooking Boston Harbor
Age 21 for driving over a bed of flowers at a girl's college in Newton.
Age 25 for running an after-hour club in Manhattan.
Age 31 in Paris for grafitting the British Embassy wall. The gendarmes thought my poem was an IRA protest against the Crown, instead of drunken verses to my girlfriend, who worked on Rue St. Honore opposite the rear entrance of the embassy.
None of these crimes were prosecuted to the fullest. My violent streak never came to the attention of the police. My drug deals were strictly small-time. I avoided contact with the Mafia. They were as dangerous as the Hell's Angels, Hamburg pimps, Colombian cocaine dealers, and conniving transvestites.
My mother had warned me about these people.
"If you see trouble coming, walk the other way."
I was near-sighted, so trouble found me long before I noticed its approach.
Luckily my Uncle Carmine explained his wayward nephews the Golden Rule.
"Only break one law at a time."
His advice stood me well. I avoided any serious consequences with the law for twenty-two years. No one's lucky streak can challenged the odds forever. In January 2008, I returned to Central Pattaya after a pleasant seafood lunch with my steady girlfriend in Jomtien.
It was a good life.
I was living alone in the most wicked town on the planet. My website featuring counterfeit Ferrari clothing and assorted F1 merchandise was # 1 in the Google search engines. I earn good money. Not a fortune. Good money. I had shipped a big order of McLaren driver suits to Germany from the Pattaya Post Office. Another week of good sales and I would be out of debt, then I could get my yellow teeth whitened to a brilliant white.
I entered my estate off Soi Bongkot and parked my motorscooter before my rented house. Another month and the mango tree would bear fruit. Everyone in the neighborhood awaited the harvest with lip-smacking anticipation.
A mini-van stopped behind me. At first, I thought it was my brother-in-law coming for a beer and I wondered why he had brought so many friends.
Except it wasn't Pi-Wot. I identified them in a second. They were the Bangkok Cyber Crime Unit come to arrest me for copyright infringement. The oldest officer in a black suit presented a search warrant. The other cops were undercover in jeans, tee-shirts, and sneakers or nork kreang baep. I was wearing sandals. Running was not an option. I knew this day might be coming. I had not thought it was coming today. ing. I hadn’t thought it would be today. I opened the gate to my house, then the door to my office.
They politely took off their shoes and entered my office. Twenty F1 shirts lay in plastic bags on the floor. They seized the merchandise and the ranking officer asked, "Where’s the rest of it?"
"That's it." Business had been traditionally slow after the holidays.
A computer geek from Ferrari sat at my computer. He wanted the codes to my site. Refusal was out of the question. Cooperation was rewarded with leniency, but tonight I would be spending the evening in a monkey house. Their tight cells were SRO.
"Can I go outside?" My presence wasn’t needed for the dismantling of f1 shopping.net. The long-haired geek knew his business. His fingers swept over my keyboard like a tsunami. F1 shopping net was gone.
The commander nodded and two cops accompanied into the garden. I hyperventilated, as a series of prospective scenarios played in my head. Most of them finished in jail.
One of the younger cops told me to calm down, "Jai yen. Jai yen."
"That's easy for you to say." I had seen MIDNIGHT EXPRESS more than once.
He wasn't being arrested in a foreign country.
"No big problem. Maybe 2000 baht." He explained the fine would be about $60. "We take you Bangkok. You pay bail and then go home. Mai pen lai."
An American detective from Quantico Ltd. was supervising the operation. His company had been looking for me a long time. Rusty was a Yale graduate. His online persona had emailed my website that his mother wouldn't allow his use of her credit card. I had accepted a Western Union wire to my real name. I had posted him the merchandise, but had written phony addresses on the envelopes, thinking that might protect me from an investigation
At least it was a comfort that my ex-wife hadn't sold me out to the tam-luau.
How they had tracked me back to Soi Sawan was unimportant. Rusty also said it wasn't such a big deal, "Not the first time. Next time you go to jail."
"Message well taken." I had been trying to quit for ages. "I don't want to go to jail."
Jail in Thailand is a bare floor with thirty-plus other misfortunates.
"You won't." Rusty had arrested scores of counterfeiters.
"You seem like a smart person. Why are you doing this?" I hated snitches.
"Why did you do this?" Rusty was in his thirties. His Thai was impeccable.
"So I could stay in Thailand." The other employment opportunities were either a low-paying teaching job or illegally running a bar.
"We all do what we have to do." But I was never a snitch.
The old lady on the street came up to me. I paid Yai to clean my house and take care of my daughter, Angie. She knew about my business. No foreigner was allowed to work in the Land of Smiles. One crime. Counterfeit F1. She had received perfume for Christmas. Third crime. Trust someone.The police had questioned her about me several times. She had never said a word to me. Her neighbor for years. Thailand had been a fascist monarchy since 1935. Its police had studied the ways of the Gestapo. I forgave Yai, since the Thai police’s nickname was ‘tam luat, which sounded like ‘make blood’. I forgave Yai. What else could she do?
"I tell police you good man."
"Thanks." Her testimony was the best a woman in her position could do for a farang.
"These police not same Pattaya. Honest. Not worry."
"Sure." I always worried when people tell me not to worry, but the police never cuffed me or confiscated my telephone. The older officer in charge asked in good English if I had any drugs or guns in the house. I told him the truth.
”No guns. Two marijuana joints.”
"Ganga no problem. Get rid of it."
He sent me into the house and I flushed the two joints down the toilet.
When I came out, he asked, "You want beer?"
"Yeah." It couldn't hurt and I reached into my pocket.
"Mai, mai." He waved his hand in the air and leaned forward. "I talk with everyone and they say you good man. I will take care of you. I not like other farang."
He glanced at Rusty and his employers, Ferrari reps from Italy and the head officer asked if I wanted some beer.
”A Leo.” The lager was Thailand’s most popular brew.
”Big bottle?”
”Big.”
I reached for my wallet. He waved away my attempt to pay and send off an underling for the beer, telling him also to get some gai thot or friend chicken. The old lady had said that these police were honest, but this arrest was unlike any that I had seen on Sophon Cable or read in the Bangkok Post.
I was not in cuffs. I had my phone. I sat in the shade of my mango tree. I drank beer. I called my wife up- country with her family. She said, “Not worry.”
I had called two friends also in my business to warn them. They were also puzzled by my good treatment. When they had been arrested for fraud, one had fled the country and the other, a cripple, had been imprisoned in the Monkey House. His Thai lawyer had arranged bail in less than a day. I expected the same treatment or worse. I had no money for bail. I was thinking MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, the 1978 prison movie based on Billy Hayes, incarceration in a Turkish prison for drug trafficking.
After two hours of checking my computer and packing the illegal merchandise, they transported me to Bangkok in an air-conditioned mini-van.
Halfway to the Sathon Police Station on the highway, they stopped for food and bought a bag filled with a McDonald’s Happy Meal accompanied by another Beer. Still not cuffed. Phone in hand. This was not my last meal and I realized how fortunate I was to have been arrested by Federal police.
A Thai friend in Bangkok met me at the police station. Khim worked as a chauffeur. He explained the process and said, “This small problem. You get bail. Go home."
Strangely everyone was very polite to me. All the other arrestees were led by chain into an ever- crowded cell. My holding cell was an office with AC and a TV with my choice of DVDs. I didn’t feel like watching anything, as I was reading Peter Hopkirk's THE GREAT GAME.
Later TV crews showed up to film me. The commanding officer for copyright infringement pointed to a pile of two-thousand shirt. "This farang was caught with 4 million baht and 2000 shirts."
"No, khun tam pit." I whispered under my breath. He had made a mistake. I pointed to a single bag down the corridor. "Those are these."
"These?" Someone had properly not briefed him.
"Yes, 20 shirts. Nothing more."
He waved to the TV crew to shut off the camera. End of interview.
The arresting officers laughed at their boss.
I sat in an AC office watching TV. Movie of my choice. INSIDE MAN. Real criminals getaway. I was fingerprinted and filled out an arrest form. When the cops announced bail of 50k or $1000.. I said I didn't have it. That was the truth.
"40k?"
"Mai mee, kap." Speaking polite Thai helps in situations like this.
"30?" There was no way they were dropping to 20 or 25.
30 it was. A little less than $1000.
Khim and I said, "Yet mah." or motherfucker.
We were short the bail. I had 15 k in the bank and Khim had 500. Nu couldn't sell a motorcycle until tomorrow. The monkey house loomed as a probability, instead of a possibility. No beds, no blankets, cheap rice twice a day, and lots of mosquitoes. The worst of Bangkok in Bangkok.
I made another phone one call. The Old Roue lived in on Soi Nana. I knew Alan from New York. I asked for 20K. He had 15K. Khim drove over to Soi 4 and picked it up. Without the Old Roue I would have been in the MonkeyHouse for who knows how long. I called him to say thanks every few days and also let him know I'm still broke.
"No problem man, I’ll get it when you get it." Khim went to fetch the money.
The whole process from raid to release had taken seven hours with a two-hour trip to Bangkok thrown into the program. The Fed cops had me sign an affidavit confirming no one had asked for a ‘sin bon’ or bribe.
After the money was paid, they cut me loose. Khim spent 200 baht on 5 bottles of Khang. I drank three of them myself.
I fell to sleep happy that I had not spent any time in the 'monkey house'. No chairs, no fans, and lots of mosquitoes as a prelude to the Bangkok Hilton, the Koong Toey jail.
I appeared on national TV that night. Channel 5. The Army station. The police had said, “Not worry. Not many people watch Channel 5."
Everyone on my soi saw the newscast.
Several Thai friends said I looked handsome. They couldn't care less that I was arrested. It's something that happens.
Everyone was astounded by this revelation of how much money I had. "You have 4 million baht."
My old lady who cleaned my house knew the truth. I was broke and wished I had the 4 million baht. I could get a job at the local school teaching English and make about $300/month. 10,000 baht. 300/baht a day is a big comedown from 3000 baht a day. My wife still loved me.
This story is far from over, since the cops said it would be at least 6-10 weeks until I go to court.
Another day in paradise has gotten a little less paradisaical, but it's always better to be free.
