Scam in bangkok airport

london
read this in today's times.
I am really surprised at the extreme extortion of the scam. Usually a scam is small scale and money is in the hundreds, not thousands of £s. this one involved the couple being falsely accused of shoplifting and confined for 5days till they pay£8000 bribe.
The authorities must know of this and benefit from it otherwise how to explain the blatantness of those involved? they are not the first to have been scammed like this so it has been going on for some time.
I know thailand is a country run on bribes. They dont think of it as bribes, but as commission for the service of hastening your application, or avoid being taken to court and going through the red tape.Usually it is quite small money involved, or relatively small in proportion to the hassle you can avoid by paying it.
It is the reason why i dont live in those countries, when every step has to be oiled with money changing hands and the amount u pay depands on what u are. Foreigners will be charged top rate.
I have asked a friend, paul M who lives there whether he has encountered any of these things, and what he thinks of them. I guess he does not mind too much or he too wont be living there, or rather, the other compensations of living in Thailand out weigh this.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6590584.ece
They were accused of taking a Givenchy wallet worth £121 from a King Power duty-free shop and were handed over to the police. An official release order from the local Thai prosecutor’s office subsequently conceded there was no evidence against them.
They were freed five days later after a frightening ordeal in which they said they were threatened and held against their will at a cheap motel on the airport perimeter until they had handed over the money.
more reports of the scam here
http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2009/06/28/809/