BANGKOK (AP) Police raided a party at a bar on a popular resort island in southern Thailand and arrested 89 foreigners for violating coronavirus regulations, officials said Wednesday.
The Tuesday night raid on the Three Sixty Bar on Koh Phangan also netted 22 Thais, including one identified as the bar’s owner and another who sold drinks there, said police Col. Suparerk Pankosol, superintendent of the provincial immigration office.
He said the gathering was illegal under a national state of emergency declared last March to combat the coronavirus.
Those arrested were from more than 10 countries, including the U.S., Britain, Switzerland and Denmark, Suparerk said. Photos of the raid distributed by police showed a dark, crowded room with casually dressed partygoers, almost all wearing face masks.
Share
At one point, the person filming inside the police station wanders round to different groups of people whooping and saying: It s a jail party!
Police Colonel Suparerk Pankosol, superintendent of the provincial immigration office, said the revellers were detained because bars are not yet allowed to operate beyond 9pm during the pandemic.
He said: ‘Every venue has to follow the rules, even if it is their fifth anniversary. The event risked spreading Covid-19 and the organisers will be prosecuted.
It comes after police on the island of Koh Phangan stormed the Three Sixty Bar on Tuesday night.
31 Techin Ploypetch, aka DJ Matoom, posted this picture from his hospital room, where he has been quarantined after catching Covid-19. Techin was born in Germany in January 1988 but raised in Thailand. (Photo: @matoom efm Twitter account)
The Disease Control Department has asked the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to take legal action against people involved with the birthday party of actor Techin Ploypetch, also known as DJ Matoom, after more Covid-19 infections were linked to the celebration.
Techin, 33, is himself in hospital being treated for the coronavirus disease, with some Thai media reports making reference to a super spreader and efforts to conceal his infection.