Yeah it was done very well. My only criticism would be that it was a little restricted on location but having said that it would have been very hard to recreate 1970s and 80s Bangkok street life. Itās like Taipei. You go away for a few years and by the time you come back nothing looks the same anymore.
Unfortunately technology like fingerprints facial scans online databases and printed passports have failed to stop this. Major criminals are still able to officially obtain any document they want - itās just you and me who has to suffer every time we want to legally cross borders.
Oh, yeah- I knew several people in or who had been to Thailand who got sucked in on that. I was with a friend visiting a couple who had just got back from SE Asia, and they were burbling about this great bargain they had on gemstones in Bangkok, and how they were going to get them appraised. My friend and I exchanged glances, and she shook her hear slightly- āDonāt tell them.ā Never heard the results of the appraisal.
A favourite trick up in Chiang Mai was to warn you about all the grifters down in Bangkok- not like the real deals to be had up here.
Faked passports: Canadian passports were especially valued, because the Canadian government was notoriously lax.
In Day of the Jackal (1971) Frederick Forsyth revealed how easy it was to get fake ID- just apply for a birth certificate for someone who had died at a very young age (so they wouldnāt likely have an application in), then use that to get a passport. He got a lot of criticism for letting the secret out, but criminals had been doing it for years, and he himself had been trying to get governments to crack down on the practise , and had basically been ignored.
Back in 91 I was backpacking , people often sold their non transferable return ticket to various destinations. All you had to do was get them to check in your baggage and get the boarding pass and then you board the plane. I was never stopped and twice boarded with girls boarding passes
I wonder what the percentages areā¦people born into law enforcement or criminal families who do the same thing, and then people who are born into one but get involved in the opposite.
Overall Iād wager the number must be pretty high, assuming both law enforcement and criminal ways of life tend get get exposed to families more. For example the mentality carried during the āworkā portion of the day often doesnāt get turned down, or off for the non-work/family part.
Gems and Stones were the thing for a long time and there were opportunities 30-40 years ago when the serpent was playing around.
Even now in Bangkok the expat diplomats and business people they still think theyāre getting a good deal from that one special dealer and itās all still just b*******.
They think theyāre getting something special, theyāre never going to sell it or find true value, going to take it home and theyāre going to say I got this great beautiful piece and itās worth a lot of money but really itās just a piece of s*** nobody wants it.
The shops just wait for Foreigner to come in and they think theyāre getting something special but itās just not.
30 years ago yes now itās too much of a f****** business and Racket joking you know these people come they think Iām going to the exotic Thailand and think theyāre doing something special theyāre just stupid.
Kind of like newbies in Taiwan that wonder if I should say hi to a foreigner when I see passing on the street
When my wife and I were in Yangshou in China for our honeymoon in 1991 she came back all excited one day, having managed to buy some gen-u-wine Yuan Shi-kai coins, with his portrait on them and everything. With the opening of tourism, phony items from the Republican era were big sellers to Taiwanese.
The most ādangerousā thing a Taiwanese can sell to an unsuspecting foreigner in Taiwanā¦.in the case of a Taiwanese girl isā¦ā¦themselves ā¦.into Slaveryā¦ā¦Yours.