Last Thursday at 6am in the morning a 21 year old Australian backpacker was detained at Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok for being caught in possession of Elephant Pants.
Soon after checking in and passing through security Karen was pulled aside by two Thai customs officers and taken into a private room.
When Cooked Nomads reached out to Karen to get the full events of the story she recounted the horror story she underwent.
Shortly after being taken in to the room the officers pointed to the suitcase laying on the table and asked in very broken English if the bag belonged to her and if she had packed it herself.
At this point she told us she began to panic and wonder why she was being stopped. She questioned if she had unknowingly packed a kilogram of cocaine or if someone slipped a dead body in to her bag without her knowing.
Not long after nervously confirming that it was her bag the offers attitude shifted and they picked up the phone to get a translator on the phone.
Karen alleged that not long after getting a translator on the phone that one of the officers opened the bag and pulled out a pair of her newly bought elephant pants.
According to Karen she told the officers that she didn’t understand what the problem was and the voice on the other end of the line shouted at her “You don’t understand? You’ve got 29 pairs of elephant pants in here, this is an intent to deal, you know that the limit is one pair of elephant pants per person in this country!”
She responded “But they’re all for me, I’m cultured and I’m an influenc…” the voice on the line cut her off mid sentence, “You can’t expect us to believe they’re all yours, how basic can you get?”.
Karen is currently being held at Klong Prem Central Prison awaiting trial next Tuesday. More updates to follow.
