“Twenty transvestites beat up a Saudi and a Palestinian who questioned their sex,” The Pattaya News, the unofficial newspaper of beach crime in Thailand, reported the other day. “He was shot to death in the ring over a cock bet.” , it was read just yesterday. “The head of the German was found in the refrigerator with a mask”, developed a summer entry. A succession of news of this type disturbs and entertains foreigners settled in the country every week, although rarely transcend beyond their borders.
For all these reasons, it should not be surprising that the Sancho case has fallen into oblivion for Thais, buried by fresh meat. As our televisions keep reminding us, last week marked two months since the murder of Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta at the hands of Daniel Sancho, son and grandson of famous actors. But the Thais lost interest in his case after fifteen days.
On the one hand, because it did not affect any of his compatriots. And second, because crimes in which foreigners are involved, either as culprits or as victims, in their large tourist centers, are not a rarity. On the contrary. Although few transcend beyond its borders – and those of the affected nationality – events of this nature happen every week. “Every day!” says Ek, a Thai fan of the genre.
It is true that the dismemberment at the hands of Sancho attracted attention, but once the super commissioner Big Joke appeared to declare the case practically closed, the Thai press has turned the page. What’s more, it is not necessary to go back to the murder in Bangkok in 2016 of David Bernat at the hands of Artur Segarra, both Catalans, to come across other dismemberments.
A month before Arrieta, Hans, a 62-year-old German real estate agent, decapitated and cut into thirteen parts with a saw in Pattaya, appeared inside a refrigerator plugged into an empty house in another city. The suspects are a couple of the same nationality and profession, Petra and Olaf, who had stolen significant amounts from their credit cards. The case was also taken up by the media Big Joke, alias Surachate Hapkarn.
The Pattaya press, available in English, is the reference for this type of morbid news. In many cases, generated by the city itself and its surroundings, a global mecca of sexual tourism, with all its conflictive and criminal derivatives.
From it we learned that, on the island of Larn, a motorboat fled after fatally hitting a young Thai woman and the Russian who was accompanying her. A weekend earlier, the body of a white man in shorts was found floating in Sattahip Bay, south of Pattaya.
When a violent death surprises a foreigner, judging by the Pattaya news, it almost always surprises him in shorts and not always wearing them. Half a year ago, in almost the same place, a 58-year-old Finn was found in the house he had bought nine months earlier from his Thai partner, with his throat slit and a kitchen knife stuck in his chest. According to the woman, he “talked a lot about suicide.” According to neighbors, the couple was always fighting loudly.
Returning to the Sancho case, it should be noted that the bathroom murders are not particularly original. A former Danish ambassador to Thailand was found in his house, with signs of violence and covered in cardboard, last Saturday.
On the other hand, two foreigners, a Chinese and a Burmese, were the fatal victims of the homicidal madness of a teenager armed with a modified blank pistol, a little over a week ago in Siam Paragon, the Bangkok shopping center that was named by Instagram in 2013 as the place with the most selfies on the planet.
Without leaving Pattaya, a homeless man who wandered naked and drunk along one of its most remote beaches and who masturbated in front of a group of women was lynched by a group of men who noticed the scene. His body was found covered in blood and excrement.
In Pattaya Mail – which competes in sensationalism with The Pattaya News – we also read that a man has been arrested who slit the throat of another thirteen years ago and who since then wandered around disguised as a Buddhist monk. Or that a dinner for highway police officers ended like the rosary of dawn, when the request for promotion of one of them to a superior triggered an argument and his death by gunshot. The alleged shooter was shot dead shortly after, while the superior in question “committed suicide.” The government, meanwhile, promises to fight against “the toll mafia.” Who gives more?
A week later, on the same beaches of Pattaya, Daria, a 32-year-old Russian, fell from the seventh floor. Security camera footage showed her companion, Fedor, 30, grabbing her legs before letting her go. Or that she would slip. This Fedor received the police with rude surprises, assuring that the scratches he had had come from himself. Her friend, he continued, had jumped off her own feet and he had only tried to stop her. The case has been settled, for now, with a fine for drunkenness and public disorder, for an undeclared amount.
There is no doubt that the limits of credulity of the Thai police are highly flexible. Recently, a 36-year-old Chinese office worker, Tang, was found on the coast of Rayong drowned in the pond of his housing estate, with trauma to his head and his legs and neck tied with cables. But officers see no reason to doubt it was suicide.
So, although the aforementioned Big Joke closed the case with the investigation still underway – the trial date has not yet been set – surprises cannot be ruled out. The super agent, by the way, has just lost the opportunity to become chief of the Royal Thai Police, so he will continue in the little group of numbers 2.
The recent search of his house – actually, houses – in Bangkok and the arrest of several of his most direct subordinates has been decisive for this. Although competition within the force has played a role, the Thais indicate that without a green light from the top (read the monarch or the leadership of the Armed Forces) there would have been no registration. Surachate denies corruption in his environment, but has admitted paying the equivalent of 260 euros “in expenses” to “three or four Thai reporters” who cover his most high-profile cases.
Finally, it should be noted that the Thai press, which refers to Daniel Jerónimo Sancho as “Jerónimo”, presents him at all times as Edwin Arrieta’s lover. In turn, he defines him as a Colombian surgeon specialized “in sex reassignment.”
For Thailand, Sancho – who had already visited the island of Phangan on one occasion, according to police records – is not a victim, as one might think listening to some Spanish talk shows, but neither is he an unusual monster. Now, even here it will not appear that Arrieta dismembered himself.
