This graphic has almost nothing to do with the story. Like literally, just about nothing at all.
Bangkok's new showcase international airport has been mired in controversy ever since the first planning permission and construction tender bid bribes exchanged hands in a downtown Patpong ladyboy bar back in 2001.
Built between 2002 and 2006 under the government of disgraced and exiled Prime Minister Foreskin Shitawaterat, the entire project was dogged by allegations of graft and corruption on a Biblical scale, besides criticism of the Legoland design and poor quality of construction due it being built from recycled egg boxes and corrugated iron sheets.
Now new shit-flinging allegations have hit the fan that legions of foreign passengers are being purposely set up and detained every month in the duty free area on suspicion of shoplifting, then held by the crooked police until they dole out large sums of money to buy their freedom.
That is what happened to Reggie Dorkmann and Candida McScrunt, two licenced cormorant whisperers from Smegmadale, as they were about to board their flight to London on the afternoon of April Fools Day this year.
The couple had been attending the Bangkok-based World Wildlife Fund’s ‘Seabird Communications’ symposium and were browsing in the duty free shop at the airport, admiring the carved ivory dildos and were later approached by security guards, who demanded to search their bags.
They were told a dildo had gone missing from a duty free display and that Ms McScrunt had been seen on a security camera trying one out for a snug fit then taking it out of the shop.
However after searching the couple’s hand baggage the security guards found no dildos on either of them.
Despite that, they were both taken from the departure gate, back through immigration, and held in an airport police office.
That, claims Mr. Dorkmann, is when their ordeal started to take on a very scary aspect.
"The airport plods looked just like characters out of Pirates of the Caribbean – real one-eyed dodgy gits – who ripped our baggage apart then strip searched us both – and even shoved a flashlight up my arse looking for the supposedly missing dildo.”
“Believe me that did not tickle one bit and my effin’ haemorrhoids haven’t felt right since.”
They were then locked in what Dorkmann described as a hot and humid, stinking cell with graffiti painted on the walls in both blood and diarrhoea – with one large piece in English stating ‘Welcome to Hell’ – ‘Sell a kidney and buy your way out’.
Over the following days Dorkmann managed to scavenge bits and pieces of tat and scrap and built a field telephone from a cocoa tin and a long piece of string - then miraculously got into contact with a Bangkok-based branch of the Samaritans.
They arranged for a Thai-speaking Sri Lankan interpreter – a certain Mr. Tony Corruptioni - who worked for Bangkok’s RentaTwat Tourist Assistance agency – to visit and assist them.
They were taken by Tony to meet the airport police commander Inspector Charlie Zigzag but spent two hours being told how much they would have to pay to get out of jail - with nary a mention of guilt or innocence or a court appearance – or evidence that they had stolen the ivory dildo – if one ever went missing in the first place.
Tony and Inspector Zigzag promised that if Mr. Dorkmann paid them £7,500 they’d get him home to England in time for his mother’s funeral the following week – which quite surprised Dorkmann as she was still alive and well a few days before.
It was then that the couple realised the possible depth and seriousness of their predicament.
They were further informed the charges of shoplifting duty-free sexual aids in Bangkok’s Ripoffs & Sleaze Airport was a very serious offence that could well carry the death penalty.
If they didn’t pay within the next week, they would be transferred to Bangkok’s infamous Paris Hilton no-star prison and would have to wait for up to five years for their case to be processed – by which time they would have missed the funerals of all their family members.
Strangely enough the airport police station had its own ATM machine and foreign exchange counter, so Dorkmann and McScrunt were instructed to draw their respective £300 maximum daily cash limits until both accounts were empty.
They were then were kicked out of the police station and confined to an old garden shed within the airport perimeter, but their passports were held and were warned not to leave or try to contact a lawyer or their embassy – until Mr. Dorkmann’s UK house was sold and the money transferred to Inspector Zigzag’s bank account.
Anyone wishing to really help the couple resolve their current dilemma might consider buying their house and Fed-Ex’ courier pack the purchase price - in high denomination foreign currency banknotes - to Inspector Zigzag at Bangkok’s Ripoffs & Sleaze Airport police headquarters.
