News Forum - Men arrested at Bangkok airport for allegedly smuggling drugs valued at 95 million baht

[Thaiger]

Two Pakistani men were arrested at Suvarnabhumi Airport on Monday for allegedly trafficking 30.6 kilograms of ketamine and 1.1 kilograms of heroin hidden in instant tea packages. Officers say the drugs had a street value of 95 million baht. The two residents of Karachi, who travelled to Thailand by an Emirates flight through the United Arab Emirates, were arrested for allegedly smuggling the drugs by passing through the green channel, which is for travellers with no items to declare, according to Customs Department Director-General Pachara Anantasilp. The narcotics were found stashed in their luggage as instant tea sachets, which were […]

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[Dedinbed]

22 minutes ago, Thaiger said:

the green channel,

 

22 minutes ago, Thaiger said:

tea

Not green tea then .. 

[gummy]

3 minutes ago, Dedinbed said:

Not green tea then .. 

But yet gold and antiques appear to be moving out of airports to overseas according to some other media reports. So double standards perhaps ?

[Chatogaster]

Why is the smuggling alleged and why are earlier opportunities at detection claimed to be missed?
Especially when the source of information is attributed to a relevant & privileged authority (here: the Customs Department Director-General) "allegedly" and "claimed" are just weasel words that make me twitch every time. They contribute exactly zilch to journalistic protection while casting doubt on the amount of fact-checking done by the author.

[Fluke]

5 minutes ago, Chatogaster said:

Why is the smuggling alleged and why are earlier opportunities at detection claimed to be missed?
Especially when the source of information is attributed to a relevant & privileged authority (here: the Customs Department Director-General) "allegedly" and "claimed" are just weasel words that make me twitch every time. They contribute exactly zilch to journalistic protection while casting doubt on the amount of fact-checking done by the author.

They use the words "allegedly" because it hasn't been proven in a Court of law .

Once a Court has found them to be guilty , then the word "allegedly" doesnt have to be used anymore .

   Its the Courts job to find out whether anyone committed a crime, its not for the media to make a judgement 

[riclag]

Emirates ! Free covid ins! 555.

Officials said it might of been missed cause they were more concerned with firearms and other things! 555.

Somebody was looking the other way ,I bet.

[Jason]

More drugs seized!! Great to hear!! But where are the guns and cash....the three always go together..

[Chatogaster]

3 hours ago, Fluke said:

They use the words "allegedly" because it hasn't been proven in a Court of law .

Once a Court has found them to be guilty , then the word "allegedly" doesnt have to be used anymore .

   Its the Courts job to find out whether anyone committed a crime, its not for the media to make a judgement 

We all know the legal system at that banal level: reporting that "person X" accused/arrested/charged/indicted/... "person Y" for "act Z" does not imply that "Y committed Z".

If this wouldn't be utterly obvious we'd have to insist that "speeding tickets" henceforth are referred to as "tickets for allegedly driving faster than is claimed to be permissible in the asserted area at the attested time".
 

[Fluke]

1 minute ago, Chatogaster said:

We all know the legal system at that banal level: reporting that "person X" accused/arrested/charged/indicted/... "person Y" for "act Z" does not imply that "Y committed Z".

If this wouldn't be utterly obvious we'd have to insist that "speeding tickets" henceforth are referred to as "tickets for allegedly driving faster than is claimed to be permissible in the asserted area at the attested time".
 

No, its about receiving a fair trial in Court .

The defense can claim it wouldn't be a fair hearing if the media had already proclaimed a person to be guilty and the Judge wouldnt proceed with the trial and the accused would walk free  

[JohninDublin]

3 hours ago, Chatogaster said:

Why is the smuggling alleged and why are earlier opportunities at detection claimed to be missed?
Especially when the source of information is attributed to a relevant & privileged authority (here: the Customs Department Director-General) "allegedly" and "claimed" are just weasel words that make me twitch every time. They contribute exactly zilch to journalistic protection while casting doubt on the amount of fact-checking done by the author.

It's called "The presumption of innocence". Of course, I am not saying that it happened in this case, but have you ever heard of Police framing innocent people? 

I think there is a lot to be said for the British system, which under sub-judice rules, places heavy restrictions on what can be reported before it is revealed in court. It's about doing one's best to secure a fair trial for the accused.

It should also be noted that TH has some tough defamation laws. If someone can be jailed for giving a bad hotel review, can you imagine what might happen to a newspaper that fails to qualify such reports with words like "allegedly" and "claimed"?

[Chatogaster]

11 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

It's called "The presumption of innocence". Of course, I am not saying that it happened in this case, but have you ever heard of Police framing innocent people? 

I think there is a lot to be said for the British system, which under sub-judice rules, places heavy restrictions on what can be reported before it is revealed in court. It's about doing one's best to secure a fair trial for the accused.

It should also be noted that TH has some tough defamation laws. If someone can be jailed for giving a bad hotel review, can you imagine what might happen to a newspaper that fails to qualify such reports with words like "allegedly" and "claimed"?

 

Yes (i.e., I can imagine): exactly nothing. 

If (referring to your example) a person accuses a hotel of bad service, it'd be naïve to assume that injecting "allegedly" in the review would have amounted to a "get-out-of-jail" card.

If (in this case) a Thai authority states that a person was apprehended on the charge of smuggling, it's perfectly fine to report that as-is (provided an attribution is given).

I'd probably argue differently if the person(s) were identified by name and a trial by media was in the process of being set up. Not in this case though. It's just (as usual) a copy of another article and a certain quota of word replacements had to be reached.

 

[JohninDublin]

13 minutes ago, Chatogaster said:

Yes (i.e., I can imagine): exactly nothing. 

If (referring to your example) a person accuses a hotel of bad service, it'd be naïve to assume that injecting "allegedly" in the review would have amounted to a "get-out-of-jail" card.

If (in this case) a Thai authority states that a person was apprehended on the charge of smuggling, it's perfectly fine to report that as-is (provided an attribution is given).

I'd probably argue differently if the person(s) were identified by name and a trial by media was in the process of being set up. Not in this case though. It's just (as usual) a copy of another article and a certain quota of word replacements had to be reached.

As I've often said on here, putting words in my mouth, does nothing to enhance the paucity of an  argument. I never implied that adding "allegedly" to a hotel review alleviated the risk of of reprisal. More to the point, those reviews are vetted before publication, and I think it highly unlikely that any reputable forum would publish a such a qualified report.

But in criminal cases, once you fail to include words like, "allegedly", you start to go down the road of removing the presumption of innocence. 

[Chatogaster]

26 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

As I've often said on here, putting words in my mouth, does nothing to enhance the paucity of an  argument. I never implied that adding "allegedly" to a hotel review alleviated the risk of of reprisal. More to the point, those reviews are vetted before publication, and I think it highly unlikely that any reputable forum would publish a such a qualified report.

But in criminal cases, once you fail to include words like, "allegedly", you start to go down the road of removing the presumption of innocence. 

 

Somewhat confusing. 

1) I didn't claim those were your words, nor did I intend them to be so. In fact, I claim them as my own and consider any other interpretation is an unintended choice of the receiver.
2) I recall it was TripAdvisor. I'm highly doubtful they're vetted to the extent you seem to suggest.
3) I'm all for "innocent until proven otherwise". Insisting on "allegedly" to hammer it down suggests a skepticism about general knowledge and thinking skills I'm not comfortable with. You may be right, but I doubt adding some classifiers does the job.
 

 

[Stardust]

6 hours ago, gummy said:

But yet gold and antiques appear to be moving out of airports to overseas according to some other media reports. So double standards perhaps ?

This shows on what degree they isolated Thailand already from the outside world, truth and realities. Quite shocking.

[JohninDublin]

28 minutes ago, Chatogaster said:

Somewhat confusing. 

1) I didn't claim those were your words, nor did I intend them to be so. In fact, I claim them as my own and consider any other interpretation is an unintended choice of the receiver.
2) I recall it was TripAdvisor. I'm highly doubtful they're vetted to the extent you seem to suggest.
3) I'm all for "innocent until proven otherwise". Insisting on "allegedly" to hammer it down suggests a skepticism about general knowledge and thinking skills I'm not comfortable with. You may be right, but I doubt adding some classifiers does the job.
 

You stated:

If (referring to your example) a person accuses a hotel of bad service, it'd be naïve to assume that injecting "allegedly" in the review would have amounted to a "get-out-of-jail" card.

You clearly conflated the two cases, even though I never implied this. That was disingenuous and was putting words in my mouth.

Regarding Tripadvisor, as he never used "allegedly" your doubts are moot. But think about it for a minute? The reviews are all pre-vetted in order to mitigate against the possibility of them being, among other things, sued. You don't think that they pay people to vet these reviews who would not see a red flag in a post containing the word "allegedly"? A word that you describe as "weasel"? Had the writer used "allegedly", I think it's fair to presume that it would never have got past the vetting process. Why else would you think that posts are pre-vetted?

You may not be comfortable with the word, but it is pretty much the type of language that is required when reporting on cases pre-disposal by the courts. If you accept the concept of "innocent until proven guilty", then you cannot complain about what you call "weasel words", that defends that convention.

[MARCO]

Now back to the topic.  Initially suprised they would be bringing drugs into Thailand as the country is awash with the stuff.  Could be wrong but I suspect the 2 alleged offenders were using the LOS as a transit point only ....... and the stuff would soon leave the country for the more lucrative prices in a Western destination.

[Garland]

That shows that some airports aren’t doing there proper checks . They should be checking for everything that’s legal . Poor excuse to say we were checking for guns and other metals .