Illegal souvenir: Russian tourist in Thailand faces up to 10 years in prison for money from the “joke bank”

Resident of Yekaterinburg Vadim Vedenyapin in Thailand faces up to 10 years in prison on charges of making and distributing counterfeit money.

The detention of a citizen of the Russian Federation became known on Monday - his wife Ekaterina wrote about this on Instagram. From her confused explanation, it follows that on vacation a man gave local residents dollar bills from the “joke bank”. According to Catherine, her husband did not have an intention to pay with these bills, and the three Thais simply did not appreciate the comic gift and turned to the police.

Later, the woman explained that she came to rest in Thailand with her husband, child and other family. According to her, Vadim took fake dollars from Russia, in which “souvenir products” are written in Russian, since the children, seeing how adults are paying in stores, were asked to give them several banknotes.

Catherine noted that her husband then donated these notes to the Thais, but later they went to the police. Vedenyapin was charged with distributing counterfeit money. The family hired a local lawyer, and also organized a fundraiser to cover further expenses, including the payment of bail. Initially, its amount was 150 thousand Thai baht (more than 300 thousand rubles. - RT ).

During a court hearing on Tuesday, it became known that the tourist was charged with making fake bills. In addition, the amount of collateral increased.

“Relatives and friends collected and transferred money to his wife Katya, he and a lawyer came to the prison to pick up Vadim, paid a deposit, waited an hour. And then they were told that they needed another 150 thousand baht, because another statement appeared and Vadim was being sewn the second article - making fake money, ”Vadim’s colleague, Alexander, told the publication 66.RU.

Ekaterina Vedenyapina did not respond to RT’s request for comment.

Now the Russian embassy is investigating the situation, but they have not yet given concrete comments to the diplomatic mission - there have been no official information about the detention of the Russian to diplomats. Meanwhile, the head of the Sverdlovsk regional branch of the Rodina party Valery Khvostov asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to intervene.

It is worth noting that users of social networks doubted the version that Ekaterina outlined. Commenting on her Instagram post, people suggested that her husband was actually trying to pay off with toy money.

Meanwhile, Vadim’s colleague, Alexander, spoke in more detail about how events developed that evening. According to him, that evening Vedenyapin was sitting in a bar where he ordered alcohol and paid for it in Thai baht, since the country does not accept American currency for payment.

According to Alexander, the Thais serving the Russians noticed souvenir dollars from him, taking them for real.

“They began to fool him in every way and offer something else,” said the colleague of the detainee. In particular, according to Alexander, the Russians wanted to offer a show with the participation of girls.

Vedenyapin decided to give locals dollars from the bank of jokes as a souvenir. But the locals, obviously not realizing that the notes were fake, continued to revolve around the man and eventually offered to give him a lift to his house, a Russian colleague noted. He added that there, the Thais, seeing how the children were playing on the floor with banknotes, realized that the money was fake.

According to Alexander, after that, the locals demanded to pay them 1,000 baht (about $ 30). Otherwise, they threatened to return to the bar and call the police. Vedenyapin refused to pay and was eventually detained.

According to the publication 66.RU, the situation is complicated by the fact that the residents of the Urals had a rest on the island, and the prison where Vadim is being held is located in another province, on the mainland.

At the end of 2017, a similar story happened with a resident of Irkutsk, Sergei Nikiforov.

He flew to Pattaya for a two-week vacation. When trying to exchange US dollars brought from Russia for local baht, it turned out that 8 bills of 100 US dollars are fake. During the search, he found six more fake hundred-dollar notes. Nikiforov rejected all charges of a deliberate attempt to sell fake banknotes, saying that he had bought currency at one of the banks in Irkutsk.

The Russians were sent to the Nong Pla Lai maximum security prison. His son hired a lawyer and began to collect money to pay bail. Then it was reported that Nikiforov, like Vedenyapin, faces up to 10 years in prison, and the amount of the deposit is equivalent to one million rubles. What ended the story of Nikiforov, media coverage of his case was not reported.