Mr Maraldi has been in the media spotlight since Sunday, when it was revealed someone used his passport on Saturday to board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, now presumed crashed. Mr Maraldi was quick to confirm he was not on board the flight when worried relatives contacted him, and instead was holidaying in Phuket. However, his passport was stolen in Phuket the year before.
While on holiday in Phuket last year, Mr Maraldi rented a motorbike from the shop on Nanai Road, using his passport as a guarantee for the bike. When he returned several days later to get his passport back to use it to exchange money, he was told his passport had been given to someone else, and he then reported it stolen.
On Sunday it was discovered that someone had boarded the missing Malaysian Airlines flight using Mr Maraldi’s passport. Another passenger also boarded the plane using the stolen passport of Austrian man, Christian Kozel, who also had his passport stolen in Phuket.
B.N. Massage motorbike rental shop, laundry and massage parlour owner, Benjawan “Tik” Nakmoraka, met with The Phuket News to explain the situation, and said she was not at the shop when the incident took place. Working at the shop was 62-year-old Thawin Kamplapa.
Mrs Benjawan explained to The Phuket News that she received two calls in July last year, saying that two customers, one French and one Italian (Mr Maraldi), were coming back to the shop to pick up their passport to use it to exchange money at a currency exchange booth (a passport is required for this).
“My husband and I were about to go shopping on that day, so we hired Mrs Thawin, 62, to look after the shop during our absence. I told her there will be two people who will come back to collect their passports at the shop.”
In the afternoon, Mrs Thawin said one of the men arrived in the afternoon, and she assumed it was one of the two who wanted his passport back. Without hesitation, she showed four or five passports to the man and let him take one.
The man picked up Mr Maraldi’s passport and then gave Mrs Thawin his “Russian girlfriend’s” passport instead as the guarantee.
Mrs Benjawan explained, “When the foreign man came into the shop, Mrs Thawin called me and told me about him. She said the man looked like Luigi. When I heard that, I didn’t doubt it because two customers had already called saying they were coming to get their passports. So I told her to give the passport away because I knew Luigi pretty well, and I trust both my employee and my customer.
“For Thai people, especially the older ones, all farangs look the same. She [Mrs Thawin] doesn’t really remember Luigi’s face well, but she thought the stranger was him and they both have a beard.”
Mrs Thawin said she feels terrible about the mistake, and doesn’t want to return to work at the shop incase she makes another mistake.
After the incident came to light, Mrs Thawin was questioned by police and immigration, and she said she was “terrified” because she’d never been to the police station before. This scared her and she was sick for two days.
“He looked like a foreigner. He had white skin and brown hair, and a beard, and was of solid build,” Mrs Thawin told The Phuket News.
B.N. Massage had given some money to Mr Maraldi to compensate for the mistake, but Mrs Thawin said she felt guilty she could not give any of the money herself because she is very poor.
Mrs Benjawan said that if it was her working on that day, she would have checked the passports and checked to see if it matched with the customer’s face.
“I usually check everything. If I don’t think the person is the owner of that passport, I would not give it to them.”
She said there were a lot of similar incidents involving “misplaced” passports at motorbike rental shops, and said it happened “pretty often” in Patong.
Kathu Police Investigator Pol Capt Khunnadech NaNongkai said he believed Mr Maraldi was not involved in any passport crime ring, or sold his own passport.
“Mr Luigi is a freelance solar cell engineer in his country. I have no doubt that he is not involved, but the commander asked me to watch his behaviour closely to see if he might be involved.
“Mr Luigi’s passport was lost in Thailand but how it was lost is suspicious. Why should motorbike rental shops need original passports from the customers when they could use just a copy?”
Although foreigners putting down their passports as guarantees for vehicle and motorbike rentals is common practice in Phuket, it is frowned upon by Embassies who say the passports do not belong to the bearer, they belong to the government concerned and should not be used for anything other than travel.
Mrs Benjawan said she keeps the actual passport because “it protects us when tourists do damage”.
She said having a copy of a passport wasn’t very helpful.
“From my experience, when tourists cause damage to a motorbike of mine, they just escape away and never come back again. I learnt this lesson in the past, and now I keep the original passports when doing this rental business. It really is a guarantee.”
Meanwhile, Capt Khunnadech has been working in Phuket for just one month but already two groups of international criminals had been caught, and he believed there were links between these two stolen passports and international criminal networks.
“The first was an Italian gang who went around stealing tourist’s possessions. Another one were Algerians who had French nationality, and they were involved in a credit card theft gang.”
As well as Mr Maraldi’s stolen passport, police are also investigating the theft of the passport belonging to Austrian man, Christian Kozel, who had his passport lost in Phuket a couple of years ago.
The police told The Phuket News that the police were checking the travelling activity of Mr Kozel. He reported it lost on March 8, 2012.
Police said he first arrived at Tropical Bungalow in Patong, and asked staff what he should do about his lost passport. He was told to contact his tour agency, which he did.
Suthirak Sinlapasomsak, customer service officer from Go Vacation company, went with Mr Kozel to the police station to report the missing passport. Mr Kozel contacted the Austrian Embassy on March 14 to ask for an emergency travel document.
Some confusion remains about what happened to the documents and the missing passport report because police can’t find them. Without it, Mr Kozel would not have been able to get an emergency travel document. However, he was able to leave on March 28 to return to Austria.