The Bangkok Post reported on 9 November 2015 that: “[f]ormer Tourism Authority of Thailand governor Juthamas Siriwan and her daughter on Monday plead innocent at the Criminal Court to bribery charges in the Bangkok International Film Festival scandal.” Over five years ago, in September of 2009, two Americans, Gerald Green and Patricia Green, were found guilty of paying bribes to a senior Thai Tourism official to obtain lucrative contracts.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reported that Gerald Green, 77, and Patricia Green, 52, both of West Hollywood, Calif., were charged on March 11, 2009, in a second superseding indictment with paying kickbacks to the former governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) in exchange for receiving contracts to manage and operate Thailand’s yearly “Bangkok International Film Festival,” as well as contracts to provide an elite tourism “privilege card” marketed to wealthy foreigners.

Specifically, according to the superseding indictment, the Greens paid approximately $1.8 million in bribes to the former governor through numerous bank accounts in Singapore, the United Kingdom and the Isle of Jersey in the name of the former governor’s daughter and a friend of the former governor. The contracts received by the Greens resulted in more than $13.5 million in revenue to businesses they owned.

Following the conviction of the Greens on corruption related charges, the U.S. indicted Juthamas Siriwan and her daughter for alleged violation of U.S. money laundering and related charges in a U.S Court in 2012.  Juthamas and her daughter challenged the U.S. indictment, as summarized in the articles that can be found here on our website. The U.S.’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) does not criminalize a foreign official’s receipt of a bribe; instead, the FCPA criminalizes the so-called supply side of corruption.