Rihanna spent a weekend at the beach in Thailand,
leaving behind a trail of racy tweets and incriminating Instagram photographs
that led police to arrest two people for allegedly peddling protected primates.
On a break from her
Diamonds World Tour, Rihanna stopped in Thailand to visit the island of Phuket,
where she befriended some local wildlife.
She posted a link on
Twitter to an Instagram photo that showed her in sunglasses snuggling up to a
furry primate called the slow loris, and tweeted Friday: "Look who was
talkin dirty to me!"
The slow loris, a
squirrel-like animal with big eyes, is native to Southeast Asia and is listed
as a protected species.
"Phuket
authorities were alerted to the picture (of Rihanna), and last night police
arrested the two individuals who brought out the loris as a photo opportunity
for tourists," a Phuket district chief, Weera Kerdsirimongkon, said by
telephone Sunday.
Police confiscated
two lorises from the pair — a 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy — who could
face charges of possession of protected animals. The charge carries a penalty
of up to four years in prison and a 40,000 baht ($1,300) fine.
Weera said
authorities have tried for years to crack down on the problem of vendors
exploiting wildlife, particularly in popular tourist areas where people pay to
pose for pictures with elephants, orangutans and other animals.
"It's like a
cat-and-mouse game. But this time it's bigger because a celebrity like Rihanna
posted the picture, and there were more than 200,000 'likes' from around the
world," he said.
Rihanna also posted
pictures of herself playing with a herd of elephants in the street Friday
night, after which she tweeted: "They all hail Empress when She walk
by."
On the same night,
she tweeted a few unprintable comments about what she apparently witnessed at
an adult show in one of Phuket's red-light districts.
Saturday's tweets
were devoted to the beach and photographs of the singer in a black bikini on a
boat surrounded by turquoise water with limestone cliffs in the distance.
Before leaving
Thailand on Sunday, she tweeted from the airport: "Gave the immigration
guy my passport and he handed me this in return without a word. Lol." It
was a picture of the singer that said "I love Rihanna."
Her next stop was
Singapore before heading to Australia and New Zealand.
Copyright (2013)
Associated Press
Source: Business Insider
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