An Italian man who claimed he was swindled, drugged and robbed of a total 2.7 million baht by a foreign business partner was himself charged with overstaying his visa and will be deported, as police say they don’t believe much of his tale of woe.
Luca Viggiani, 44, filed a complaint with Pattaya Police June 8, ten days after he supposedly woke up on Pattaya Beach after being drugged and robbed of 600,000 baht and a 150,000-baht watch by his partner, identified later as Alberto Regina.
Viggiani said that Regina initially duped him into investing 2 million baht into an entertainment venue, then absconded with the money. Regina then allegedly reappeared and assured him he could recover the lost investment if the Italian would give him an additional 600,000 to pay police to track it down.
Viggiani claimed he pulled the cash from the bank and then met Regina in his Toyota Fortuner, where the man gave his soon-to-be victim a bottle of drinking water. He said that was the last thing he said he remembers.
Police, however, say that Regina actually filed police charges against Viggiani for breaking into his house searching for him, then twice failed to respond to a police summons for questioning.
Regina’s complaint also said Viggiani only paid 880,000 baht of the original 2 million baht investment and reneged on the balance.
Once the Italian finally appeared at the station, police checked his passport and discovered he had overstayed his tourist visa by 34 days.
Rather than sort out a very dubious mess, police took the easiest route and simply turned Viggiani over to the Chonburi Immigration Office, which would process him for deportation and possible blacklisting for five years from Thailand.
