'Like the mafia': Bangkok's motorbike taxi drivers locked in deadly turf war

Tensions between rival moto gangs in the Thai capital escalated after the arrival of ride-hailing apps. Now two men are dead

On Thursday morning on Soi Udomsuk, a market-flanked road in east-central Bangkok, nine police officers on plastic chairs are keeping watch.

The officers, their peaked brown hats neatly lined up on trestle tables, are on the lookout for any signs of trouble between rival motorbike taxi gangs after carnage erupted in this pocket of the city on Saturday when a brutal fight broke out between two groups of drivers.