Arabic/Afghan scammer on Beach Road/Central Festival area
If you have a larger than average belly, are balding, have eye bags, grey hair etc etc you will have been approached in Pattaya numerous times by these Arabic looking (I think they are Afghan) guys mainly operating on Beach Road. They will point at your belly, say you have big belly and that they/their/brother/dad was the same but he started drinking honey and special supplement and his belly went down. Out of the goodness of their heart they will offer to take you to the shop to buy this magic powder (also works for baldness.. it’s a fucking miracle)
First of all they will take you to 7/11 to buy honey (so now you’re invested) and then they will take you to a shop. There are two shops operating right now in Tipp Plaza and on 13/2. The shop is complete with signage and artwork to make you think it’s legit. They then proceed to show you the powder and before you can say no they have opened it and mixed it with water and your magic honey from 7/11. They then tell you the price, this ranges from about 3-10,000 baht. There are always several men in the shop and they persuade you to pay. The shop workers are Thai.
Sometimes I have nothing to do at night so I just walk and walk to get 20k steps a day lol.. so I have taken dozens of photos, hours of videos of them getting their victims on Beach Road and presented this to the police and nothing has happened so I’ve started to take action myself. For example, last night I watched them lure two indian men into their scheme and followed them to the shop on the beach side of Tipp Plaza. When they came out of the shop I told them they had been scammed and we’ll get the police to get their money back. They had each paid 4000 baht. They didn’t speak much English but I helped to translate and took them to speak to the tourist police on Beach Road.
The tourist police (all Thai this night) were actually very helpful. We went back into the shop an after a bit of arguing they gave them their money back.
So if you have been taken in by this scam, the police will help you to get your money back. If you need help feel free to DM me. I’d love to close down this operation and will keep trying to do what I can. They give Pattaya a very bad name.