Bandits, Junkies and Rambo

      During the time of house building and car buying, rumors of rubber, motorbike thefts and armed robbery's had been circulating around the area. I seldom took much notice of village tales as they always seemed to be blown out of proportion or happened 20 plus years ago. Yet there was more than usual, story's of bandits crossing over from Lao had become common. There is no shortage of dodgy characters up here, just as in the city. Petty thieves, stealing cup rubber from unwatched plantations. Isolated houses burgled while the owners were at the rice fields. Even my nearest English neighbor had caught a teenager trying to steal from his house. Then one day a Thai rubber farmer chanced upon a group stealing his rubber. he was armed. As he approached, someone in the group fired at him. A short exchange of gun fire ensued and the group fled. One of the thieves had been wounded,  there was a blood trail to where they had parked their motorbikes.

       There is no shortage of weapons around theses parts. The border war with the Vietnamese in Cambodia and communist insurgents aided by the PDR of Lao had only finish in 1985. The Thais had given weapons to villages to protect themselves and the other side had armed local communist sympathizers. Many of these weapons are still out there.
      We live in a village, everyone watches out for everyone else, strangers stand out, but even to this day the village heads and some Government employees are issued with rifles. The father in-law is one. At rice harvesting time the villagers desert their homes and the families go and live in the rice fields, until all the rice has been harvested. At these times the village heads etc are supposed to patrol around to keep away thieves. Not that you are likely to see one walking a beat late at night. It is the jungle after all and this has been a lawless area for as long as people have lived here. Only recently have marked police patrols come this far, this is border soldiers country.



      The factory was broken into one night, $500 worth of rubber had been stolen. We had the brother in-law and his wife staying there, but when he went to tap rubber he would bring his wife here for the night. It was on such a night that they came. I got the family and the tappers all together, to see what we could do. The story of bandits from Lao had scared them, none wanted to stay alone at the factory.
      Later I got more of the truth as to what was happening. Seems that the bandits from Lao numbered 3, one of which was a Thai, wanted by the police. He  had fled over to some cousins across the border and they were drug smugglers. Meths amphetamines, speed or yabba as it's called in Thailand. They would bring the drugs over to the Thai guys old village, which is deep in the jungle and sell. Word had got around of this abundance of cheap yabba and junkies from around the district had headed there to buy. Like anywhere in the world your average junkie has to steal to get the money. Where better to steal than near your supply, no travel involved and less chance of getting caught by the police. The police were powerless to do much, if they went in mob handed the junkies just melted into the jungle. The police are neither trained nor equipped to chase bad guys through the jungle and I am sure they were reluctant to do so encase the bad boys had a load of AK 47 assault rifles waiting.



      A bunch of junkies were not going to be stealing my rubber, so I moved to the factory. On the first night the wife and father dropped me off, the father showed me a cupboard, inside was a muzzele loading bird rife. It was something Davey Crocket would have carried, except that it was for birds and was less than a 22 caliber. I looked at the wife and said one shot, then what, beat them about the head with it, I thought theses guys were all armed and afraid of nothing. She smiled and said, everyone has seen Rambo 4, no one would dare to rob the place, while you are here. I lasted 5 days, my back was broke from sleeping on a mat and I was bored. Grabbed the wife and kids. We all went to Ubon for the weekend, that night the factory was robbed again, they had been watching.
      There was no way I was going to take up permanent residents in the factory. CCTV was the only answer, 15,000 Baht $500 I had a state of the art video surveillance system. It was installed the following Tuesday along with some sensor lights. I told everyone , that not only would it record anyone coming into the factory, but it was inter net linked and could be watched from any where in the world. We caught our first thief 2 weeks later. He wasn't stealing our rubber, but selling stolen rubber. The owner of the rubber came to see all the rubber buyers in the area, to see if anyone had sold some sheet. He identified his rubber . The police were called and a memory stick with the video was handed over. The man was arrested and given 12 months in the monkey house. The bad guys who weren't afraid of anything were afraid of prison. Word spread about the cameras and we have never had a problem since. As for the 3 bandits from Lao. I am told , but can't say how true it is. As I said earlier village storys go round, that they came to some is misfortune in i the jungle. Either way they have not been see since.