Jaffrey Maharan, a Singaporean businessman, has reportedly been stuck in Thailand for three years following a legal dispute in which his ex-landlord accused him of stealing furniture and causing damage to a rental property.
Though Maharan thought he had been recently cleared to leave the Kingdom, when his Thai lawyer went to pick up his travel documents, the court revealed that the landlord had appealed once more, forcing Maharan to stay in Thailand for months to come.
Maharan’s legal troubles began in 2009, when he and a business partner were accused of stealing furniture and causing damage to a house they were renting.
Though a court declared in Dec. of 2011 that Maharan had been cleared of any wrongdoing, repeated appeals by his landlord have drawn out the legal process.
In yet another strange twist to this already strange story, it appears as if the Singaporean man may have been business partners with Lee Chestnutt, a British man experiencing the same legal difficulties who has been profiled in the BBC recently.
This story from The Straits Times mentions an unnamed, British business partner of Jaffrey’s, while this story from the BBC about Lee Chestnutt describes a sequence of events identical to those described in Jaffrey’s narrative, only in the singular.
Maharan and Chestnutt are also described as the founders on the Bangkok Post business listing page of Urban Resort Co. Ltd., a spa product company.
