By ROBERT HORN Liji
With his black stetson and colt .45 automatic, police officer Wanlop Siridon looks like a lawman out of the Wild West�Thailand's Wild West. The dense forests of the country's western border with Burma are a haven for smugglers, dope dealers and ethnic rebels. Wanlop, though, isn't hunting outlaws. He's part of a posse led by Senator Chaowarin Latthasaksiri that is tracking treasure: a legendary load of loot supposedly stashed by the Japanese Imperial Army at the end of World War II. On April 12, the group claimed to have found the trove, reputed to include 2,500 tons of gold in two railway cars and a plane, surrounded by skeletons sealed inside a cave near the infamous Death Railway�the Rangoon-to-Bangkok line that the Japanese built using slave labor during the war.
But as television crews descended on the site, the only gold Chao-warin was flaunting was his Rolex. Wanlop, who insists he has seen the booty, looked doubters dead in the eye and said: "If there's no treasure in that cave, you can take my pistol and shoot me down like a dog."
Ditch your ammo clip and fast, Wanlop. The lost treasure of Lijia Cave is now notorious as the biggest hoax in Thailand's history, a scam so brazen it came dangerously close to ensnaring the monarchy. But while the grifters never made it to the Grand Palace, the fraud reeled in (and some argue was abetted by) Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin flew to Lijia on the April 13 and after being privately shown evidence by Chaowarin, made vague pledges to enlist remote sensing satellites to probe the cave. If the find was genuine, he told reporters, it could pay off the $61 billion national debt from the Crash of '97. A poll released after Thaksin's visit showed 62% of Thais believed the treasure was real. "The whole thing is a symptom of a society in crisis," says Sunai Phasuk, a former history lecturer at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. With Thailand's economy still in sorry shape, he says, "people don't have much hope, so they want the quick fix, the pot of gold."
Tales of Japanese war gold have floated around the Thai-Burma border for decades. According to Micool Brooke, author of The Treasure of the Samurai, Japanese war veterans were arrested several times digging for loot near the Death Railway. Last year, six Thais suffocated while searching Lijia Cave. Brooke calls Chaowarin's hunt a publicity stunt. There is no treasure, he says.
Tell that to the thousands of tourists flocking to Lijia Cave which, though located in a national park, is easy to find. Just look for the 5-m high billboard that says: "Site of the treasure hunt that will save the Thai nation." As the curious file in, they are handed eight-page, full-color brochures proclaiming Chaowarin the "Outstanding Person of the Year 2000." There's also the 20-page booklet (Who Says I'm Crazy? I'm Not Crazy!) detailing his seven-year search. And there's the Senator himself, posing for pictures in his cowboy hat and talking about his upcoming audience with King Bhumibol Adulyadej to present his findings. He admits he has never seen the treasure, but insists his men have, and when the government allows them to dig, he'll prove it. If they find nothing, well, "people already say I'm mad," Chaowarin says. "But I'm sure I'm going to be a national hero."
Under pressure from reporters early last week, Chaowarin finally revealed the evidence he used to sway Thaksin and planned to show the King: 25 U.S. Treasury bonds, dated 1934, with face values of $100 million each, allegedly found in a titanium case inside Lijia. It was at this point that his tale collapsed faster than the Thai stock market. A similar phony bond scam was recently exposed in the Philippines: the U.S. has never issued bonds worth more than $10 million. A stunned Chao-warin, claiming he had been duped, told reporters he had postponed his audience with the King. He was trying to meet Thaksin, but the Prime Minister was busy. With Thai police beginning to arrest suspects in the multibillion-dollar bond fraud, Chaowarin and his team must now tread carefully to avoid implication in the ongoing investigation.
Thaksin's rebuff was a bit late. To many the Prime Minister looked like a sucker. An editorial in The Nation labeled him the subject of "international ridicule." Sunai, on the other hand, suggests Thaksin's goal was to distract attention from his ongoing trial at the Constitutional Court for allegedly burying some of his own treasure by filing a false assets dec-laration when he was Deputy Prime Minister. Or maybe he was hoping Chaowarin could help pay for the pots of gold he promised voters in order to get elected. To be sure, Thaksin's credibility is in tatters. But Lijia Cave may still make it as a tourist attraction. The billboard could read: "Site of the treasure hunt that will save the Thai nation (treasure not included)."
source:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,107319,00.html
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