Pattaya officials have finally moved against the city’s
many jet ski scam artists, ordering every vendor working the area’s beaches
to register at city hall by Aug. 10 or be classified a criminal operator.
At yet another meeting Aug. 3 on the scandal that has
besmirched the city’s image internationally for more than a year, officials
pounded fists on tables and professed outrage at the seemingly endless
string of incidents involving extortion and physical intimidation of
tourists by jet ski touts plaguing Pattaya, Jomtien and Naklua beaches.
Officials were apparently content to ignore overseas and
online media accounts of the scams. But a July 26 expose on government-owned
Channel 3 TV prompted police and administrators to get serious about
addressing the scandal.
Deputy Mayor Ronakit Ekasingh told vendors assembled that
all watercraft vendors must report to Pattaya City Hall by Aug. 10 to
provide copies of identification cards, vehicle registration and other
documents which would be distributed to city hall and police officials.
Licenses would eventually be issued and Ronakit said matters related to
insurance for the jet skis would be discussed at a later meeting.
A number of ideas related to regulating the jet ski
industry were proposed, many of them heard several times before. One new
suggestion, however, was to create a centralized rental desk where tourists
would purchase coupons covering rental of any jet ski as well as insurance
cover for any damage they might cause.
Currently, anyone with a jet ski can set up shop on
Pattaya Beach with no license and pay no taxes. Many have done just that,
padding their earnings by extorting huge sums of money from tourists by
fraudulently claiming they damaged their watercraft. Trusting tourists often
turned to police, many of whom work with the beachfront scam artists and get
kickbacks of any cash generated.
At the meeting, Banglamung District Chief Chawalit
Saeng-Uthai said the situation was out of control and that Pattaya’s image
is being destroyed around the world by a handful of beachfront thugs.
Ronakit claimed only about 10 individuals were actually
the cause of all the problems, although in the next breath he admitted
there’s been no actual survey of who is working the beach.
Chawalit added he believes public officials have only uncovered the tip
of the iceberg and that many deeper problems have yet to be addressed. He
advocated a team of negotiators be created to mediate vendor-customer
disputes.
