WATCH: ‘Liquorish’ Producers Clear Air On Bangladesh Drone Misunderstanding Which Led To Arrest
A weird story of 12 Maltese tourists getting arrested in Bangladesh surfaced online and started making the rounds a couple of weeks ago. The incident, which actually happened back in December, saw the then-unidentified Maltese people getting into a misunderstanding with Bengali authorities over a drone, eventually leading to some arrests. Now, the producers behind the popular local TV show Liquorish have confirmed that they were actually the group involved in the incident.
The announcement came during last night’s episode of the show, which also happened to be Liquorish 2018‘s debut. In the opening minutes, hostess Andrea Cassar confirmed the connection, taking the time to also clarify some small tidbits about the events. “Yes, one of the Liquorish crew members was arrested, and you’ll be seeing more about that and how the story unfurled in the coming weeks,” Andrea said.
Lovin Malta reached out to the Liquorish producers to get some more information on what till now was a relatively hazy news story.
This year’s edition of Liquorish takes contestants to… you guessed it, Bangladesh
“The incident actually happened towards the beginning of our experience there,” Liquorish Production Manager Joseph Cauchi told Lovin Malta. “We were on a boat for an island activity in this beautiful and huge natural park.”
That natural park was the Sundarbans, a huge forest in the coastal region of the Bay of Bengal where Bangladesh meets India.
A network of marine streams, mud shores and mangrove forests, the Sundarbans are considered one of the natural wonders of the world. The Maltese group was apprehended on Dublar Char, an island towards the southeastern tip of the Sudarban region.
“To travel to protected ares like those, you’d need not only a list of names of the people who are visiting, but also a list of equipment which you’ll be carrying,” Joseph continued. “We didn’t want to attract too much attention to ourselves as being a TV crew since that would’ve probably caused some alarm. It would’ve also been a little too complicated to explain the nature of our show, given the language and culture barriers. What did happen, however, was that the misunderstanding quickly escalated.” And it turns out he wasn’t joking.
The group made it to national news, and were even accused of spying by some people. With Bengali media having a very strong pro-government sentiment and the entire country being very militarily active, a strange group of a dozen foreigners with professional filming equipment in a nature reserve must’ve raised some warning flags.
“Bangladesh is a curious, weird and very eccentric country,” Joseph told Lovin Malta, looking back on his experiences in the South Asian country. “But it’s also ridiculously beautiful and simply breathtaking.”
Liquorish kicked off last night, and will now be airing every single Monday for the next 15 weeks. The two-hour show has been going for 14 years, and has since then only gone from strength to strength.
When asked for more information on the incident, Joseph simply smiled and told us to stay tuned. “The episode which features footage of the incident will air soon enough,” he said.
This year’s edition of Liquorish sees 10 contestants from different walks of life travelling to Bangladesh in a set of gruelling challenges. After weeks of anticipation, fans of the reality adventure TV show will be pleased to know Liquorish is back with a bang and delivering some of that good old #MalteseDrama.
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