[OPINION]
On the night of 23 May, Sikharin Phromcharoen drove his taxi to pick up a foreign tourist on Koh Samui. He never made it home.
A group of men stopped his car, blocked the road, and opened fire. He was shot six times and died at hospital in the early hours of 24 May. He was 31 years old.
His wife had just given birth to their first child. The baby was one month old.
The alleged motive: Sikharin had picked up a passenger in the wrong part of the island.
He Was Already Paying Protection Money
What makes the case especially striking is this: Sikharin had been paying a monthly fee to a local taxi group for the right to operate on the island. He paid. And they killed him anyway.
According to family members and local media reports, the dispute was over territorial boundaries — a line that, in the eyes of the group that controlled that area, he had crossed.
Police arrested one suspect, Jatupol, known locally as “Boy”, on charges of premeditated murder. Seven others remain at large. The family has asked the Ministry of Justice for witness protection, fearing retaliation from what they describe as an influential local network.
So What Exactly Is the “Taxi Mafia”?
They are in Thailand’s tourist towns.
It is not a single organisation. There is no boss, no headquarters. Instead, it refers to informal networks of local taxi drivers and operators who divide popular tourist areas into territories and then fiercely defend them.
A local group controls each territoryor cooperative, sometimes called a “queue”. That group holds the exclusive right to pick up passengers from specific locations: a hotel entrance, a pier, a beach access point, an airport.
If a driver from outside that territory tries to pick up a customer there, the response can range from a verbal warning to having your car surrounded or worse.
The system exists because it is profitable. In tourist towns with no real public transport, getting people from A to B is a lucrative business. And where there is no competition, prices stay high.
Phuket: Where It Is Most Visible
Unlike Bangkok, where metered taxis are standard, most Phuket taxis refuse to use meters and charge flat rates instead. In February 2022, a video went viral showing a Thai tourist arguing with a driver who had quoted 600 baht for a journey more than three times the cost of the same trip booked through a ride-hailing app.
But the deeper issue is territorial control. Phuket International Airport, for example, operates under a state-enforced concession. Only two companies Phuket Mai Khao Sakhu and Phuket Limousine and Business Services Cooperative are licensed to pick up passengers there. Any other driver caught doing so faces a 2,000-baht fine.
However ,currently Phuket Airport offers more transportation options, such as Airport Bus, Phuket Smart Bus, and metered taxis with designated stops.
Since late 2023, Phuket Airport has relaxed regulations, allowing Grab vehicles to pick up passengers at designated pick-up points within the airport area to reduce monopolies and increase convenience for tourists.
The same logic applies across the island. Rassada Pier, the main departure point for Phi Phi Island, has been the site of repeated confrontations between local taxi groups and drivers using ride-hailing apps.
In September 2022, four foreign tourists returning from Phi Phi were forced out of a van they had booked through Bolt. The local Rassada VIP Group claimed exclusive rights to the pier and blocked them from leaving in their pre-arranged vehicle. Police said both sides were technically within their rights which said something about how unclear the rules were.
A similar incident happened again in June 2023, on the same day the government officially confirmed that Bolt was a legally authorised service. Two days later, officials put up a sign at the pier clarifying that no single group had exclusive rights there. The confrontations continued.
The violence has escalated over time. In late 2023, a ride-hailing driver picking up a customer in the Cherng Talay area was dragged from his car and beaten so severely his lung collapsed. In July 2024, another app driver in the same district was attacked and left with a cracked skull.
Koh Samui: The Rules Exist. Nobody Uses Them.
On paper, Koh Samui does have fare regulations. The Ministry of Transport sets a starting rate of 40 baht for metered taxis in provinces outside Bangkok, with a per-kilometre rate applied after that. Samui even has an official island surcharge of around 50 baht on top.
In practice, Taxi drivers rarely use meters, citing fuel costs and the island’s road conditions. Instead, the island runs on a flat-rate system prices agreed before you get in, with no official reference point for either side.
A short five-minute ride can cost 300 to 400 baht. A cross-island trip can exceed 1,000 baht. Some tourist spots post price boards showing “standard” flat rates to different destinations, but those rates are typically far higher than what a meter would show.
Ride-hailing apps face the same resistance here as in Phuket. In areas controlled by local taxi networks, Grab and Bolt drivers are discouraged or actively prevented from operating.
The result is a market where regulations exist but go unenforced, and where local networks set the effective price. For tourists, it feels like there are no rules. For the drivers those networks target, the consequences can be far worse than an inflated fare.
The death of Sikharin makes that point without ambiguity. He operated within the system — paid his protection fee, drove his routes. It still was not enough.
Pattaya: Controlled From the Pier In
Pattaya operates similarly. The cruise terminal near the city technically outside Pattaya proper is controlled by local taxi groups. Private drivers arranged by passengers have been turned away at the entrance because they were not part of the authorised network.
Despite repeated crackdowns, the pattern continues. In a single operation last year, tourism police arrested 49 taxi drivers in one day across Bangkok and Pattaya: 22 for refusing to use meters, 13 for refusing passengers, and others for various violations. Enforcement officers described the situation as a “branding crisis” for Thai tourism.
The problem, they said, was not shortage of rules. It was shortage of consequences.
Why Does This Keep Happening?
No decent public transport, high tourist demand, and weak enforcement.
In cities like Bangkok, competition exists. Metered taxis, the BTS, the MRT, buses, motorbike taxis and ride-hailing apps all compete for the same customer. Competition keeps prices in check.
In Phuket, Samui and Pattaya, most of those alternatives simply do not exist. You need a vehicle. The local group controls the vehicles. That is the entire dynamic.
Ride-hailing apps have started to break that monopoly, which is precisely why local groups treat them as a threat. The violence documented over the past few years the beatings, the blocked cars, the killings is, in part, a response to losing control of that market.
Thailand welcomed over 35 million foreign visitors in 2024. Getting tourists from airports and piers to their hotels is, as one official put it, “the front door to the tourism industry.”
Right now, that front door has a problem.
Reviews and social media posts about Phuket taxi confrontations spread quickly. Governments including India have issued formal advisories warning their nationals about scams and extortion in Thai tourist areas. The reputation cost is real and measurable.
But for the family of Sikharin Phromcharoen — a former soldier who spent his off-hours driving elderly passengers, pregnant women, and people with disabilities for free — the cost is something else entirely.
He spent his life helping people get where they needed to go.
He was killed for it.
Reporting based on Thai PBS, MGR Online, Khaosod, Daily News, The Phuket News, and The Thailand Life.
The story How Thailand’s transport gap created the Taxi Mafia as seen on Thaiger News.
