A DESTITUTE Swedish couple who were picked up on the streets of Phuket before Christmas are still in custody in Thailand, awaiting repatriation.

Phuketwan thought that Bjorn Lennart Lundqvist, 59, and Gabriella Rose-Marie Strand, 58, were simply down on their luck when they were eventually arrested on Phuket, having become unable to pay for accommodation, food or other needs.

But it turns out they are 'Scamdinavians.' An official from the Swedish embassy made clear yesterday that the couple are simply, without wishing to be unkind to them, international freeloaders.

''This is the fourth time Mr Lundquist has done this, and it's the third time for Ms Strand,'' said the official, who preferred to remain anonymous.

He was planning to visit the Immigration detention centre in Bangkok yesterday to check on the condition of the much-travelled couple.

It's a kind of extreme tourism that we hadn't encountered before, hence our sympathetic report earlier that the couple might need a benefactor to get home to Sweden for Christmas.

The reality is a little different, we learned yesterday when we checked with the embassy to see how the couple were faring.

''They have been doing this every year lately, sometimes twice a year,'' the Swedish embassy official said. ''We have perhaps 65 to 70 Swedes a year who find themselves in this situation.

''Other countries encounter similar problems.''

While the Thai government is footing the bill for their incarceration at the detention centre, Mr Lundquist and Ms Strand will eventually pay their own airfare home . . . once their Swedish pensions have reached the point where they cover the cost of the airfare.

However, in their wake they leave Swedish expats who reside on Phuket, who helped the couple, and who now wonder how this mischief can be allowed to happen time and time again.

''It's bad for the reputation of good Swedes here, and honest Swedish visitors,'' one expat told us.

The travel tricks of the sympathy-seeking pair are frowned upon by Swedish and Thai authorities who expend time and energy on the couple's unusual regular ''holiday'' in Thailand.

It is believed they will depart leaving bills unpaid on Phuket. Their substantial overstay fines from expired visas also are understood to go unpaid.