AUSTRALIAN tourist Jenna Marie Keys will not be catching her flight home as planned tonight. Instead she will be in a Phuket cell after a holiday that went horribly wrong when, according to police, she made a fraudulent insurance claim.

Mr Keys, 23, made no comment to the Phuket media today when she was paraded with other suspected expat criminals at a Phuket police station this afternoon.

She's the second young Australian woman tourist who had been caught in the island holiday capital of Patong trying to rip off insurance companies, police said.

According to Colonel Arayapan Pukbuakao, who heads Kathu Police Station which oversees Patong, Ms Keys is just one of many tourists who seek to make false insurance claims ''that make Thailand look as though it is full of thieves.''

Ms Keys went to the police station about 8pm yesterday and said two men on a motorcycle had snatched her bag, containing her expensive newly-purchased Canon camera, top-brand sunglasses, lipstick and a wallet containing 6000 baht in cash.

However, when police officers went to find bystanders near the big Jungceylon shopping centre who could support her story, all the people who had been in the area at the time said they'd seen and heard no theft.

Officers took Ms Keys to her room at the Tony Resort, where they said they found the camera, the sunglasses and the lipstick she said had been stolen.

Ms Keys' ''holiday'' could be extended by several weeks in less than luxurious accommodation at the Phuket Prison, where conditions are overcrowded and unpleasant.

Her birthplace is Griffith, NSW. She was presented to the media with several other suspected expat criminals.