French Tourist Robs a Bank on the Holiday Island of Koh Tao
On Friday morning, a French tourist used a gun to rob a Siam Commercial Bank on the holiday island of Koh Tao. He arrived at the bank on a motorcycle at about 10:20am. Inside were Thai and foreign customers. Using his gun to threaten the tellers, he demanded that they handed over all of their cash. He then attempted to flee but didn’t get far. Bank customers and local people were able to apprehend him and he was finally arrested by the police. On searching his body, they found 2.5 million Baht in cash and also the gun which turned out to be fake. The suspect gave a full confession to the police. He told them that he had been travelling in the area for many months and had run out of money. The Frenchman was then sent to appear in front of judges in the court on Koh Samui. It is not known how he expected to escape from the island.
Source: Thai Rath
Is he really tourist?
http://www.thairath.co.th/content/region/268813
“He is a diving instructor, living on the island many years ago with his thai wife.”
Thanks for the link. That gives a lot more information. The original story just said he had been travelling between the islands for a long time. Obviously more to this story than first meets the eye. BTW, even if he was a “diving instructor” he would still have been on a tourist visa. I don’t think any of them have work permits and pay taxes unless they set up their own company.
“I don’t think any of them have work permits and pay taxes unless they set up their own company.”
Actually, many permanent instructor working for the big dive resorts has a work permit and pays tax as well.
Anyway, thx for the news we did not even hear about it here but I start my investigation 🙂
It has to be big operations as you need at least four Thai employees and 2 million Baht registered capital for each work permit to be issued. So, if you have 3 foreigners working for you, you need to have at least 12 Thai employees and 6 million Baht of registered capital. I know most language schools around here cannot do that so usually only one of the foreigners gets the work permit. The rest have to do visa runs.