Aussie Bar Beer Mat Theft Barred Woman from Entry to US under US Immigration Laws

The Bangkok Post (see story here) is reporting that the woman who sparked an international incident when she stole a 2,000 baht beer mat from the Aussie Bar in Patong has now been banned from travelling to the US. This incident should well be taken with a certain level of seriousness due to statutory bars in the US immigration laws that prohibits certain people from entry to the US, regardless of their high profile or celebrity status. Lesson learned? There are wide and deep consequences for criminal convictions.

This mother of four, Annice Smoel, was recently in an international scandal and was convicted of theft and deported to Melbourne.
Smoel, 36, has been forced to cancel a planned trip to Disneyland after the US embassy in Melbourne refused her application for a Tourist Visa due to her her theft conviction in Phuket last month.

According to the Bangkok Post:

Smoel was arrested and kept in a police cell for 48 hours after she was caught leaving the popular Aussie Bar in Soi Bangla with the 1.5-metre beer mat stuffed into her handbag.

When undercover police stopped her outside the bar, she tried to flee, and when she was eventually caught abused the arresting officers.

Smoel demanded to be taken to Kathu police station, where she continued to abuse police, including senior officers.

Smoel later claimed the theft was a “prank” and that her friends had put the beer mat into her handbag without her knowledge.

The story became front page news in Australia after Smoel’s husband contacted a talkback radio station, claiming his wife was being kept in a Thai prison.

Australian media initially sympathised with Smoel’s plight, but the tide turned against her when the full facts were finally revealed.

Smoel eventually admitted her crime, was convicted, given a six-month suspended sentence and fined 1,000 baht.

Phuket governor Wichai Praisa-nob personally paid the fine, publicly apologised to Smoel and told her she would be welcome to return to Thailand anytime she wished.

But as soon as she was safely home on Australian soil, Smoel started bad-mouthing Thailand, Phuket and the Thai people, doing irreparable damage to Phuket’s tourism industry.

She sold her story to an Australian women’s magazine for a reported 650,000 baht and said she planned to use the money to take her three daughters, Zhian, 12, Daisy, 11, and Lilly, six, on a dream trip to Disneyland in California.

But Smoel discovered this week that US authorities are not as forgiving as the Thais. Her application for a US tourist visa was refused on the basis that she is now officially listed on US databases as a convicted thief.

She has been forced to cancel the family’s dream trip to Disneyland, and her daughters are reportedly “devastated”. Smoel said she was told by US embassy officials that the ban on her entering the US would remain in force for as long as seven years.

“My girls will be all grown up by then,” she said.