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BEHIND THE HUNT FOR THE CHILD RAPIST

September 25, 2017, 6:10 am
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NOW ITS SWEET HOME ALABAMA FOR CHLD ABUSER WHO FAKED HIS OWN DEATH TO PROWL CAMBODIA AND THAILAND.

BUT HOW FAST WAS THE 'LONG'ARM OF THE LAW?

Congratulations to the Royal Thai Police for finally catching up with Jackson Matthew Hall who was wanted in Alabama for serious sexual offences including the rape of five-year-old girl.



Using the passport of a friend in Alabama Tyler Doran Smith Jackson Matthew Hall even faked his own death to put police and the courts off his trail – and then spent a merry couple of years, when not in the flesh trade areas of Cambodia and Thailand – following a teaching career!

Mt congratulations to the Thai and US authorities are however qualified by the fact that most of the detective work was in fact carried out by Darron Beetge, a South African national, whom I am glad to say has been able to get his young son by his Thai mother out of Thailand to a school in South Africa where says Darron he has adapted superbly.

Darron made some enquiries in the USA and established that he was not Tyler Doran Smith, but Jackson Matthew Hall.


The mother in question Nittaya Polsripim Beetge his former wife had set up home with Hall and to a certain extent tried to protect him.  

It appears that she could not believe her husband, now ex-husband, that her lover from Madison County, Alabama, was wanted for, aggravated child sexual abuse, first degree rape and sodomy of the five-year-old, as well as Grand Theft Auto.

The US authorities gave him bail in the sum of US$30,00, provided by his family – even though when arrested in July 2015, he was reported to have pulled a gun on police.


Unable to contact his wife Darron went to police to report her as a missing person so that he could take his son to South Africa.  He told police about the identity of Hall. However, that all fell on death ears and police put out a media story of a heartbroken husband who wanted to be re-united with his beautiful Thai wife.

From South Africa, he said, he pestered and pestered Thai police and even the US Embassy, but he did not seem to get much further than American Citizen Services, which is odd of course because he is not an American citizen. This was a matter for FBI and ICE.

“The Thai police could have made an arrest all the way back in June last year when her a work colleague laid a charge against her for stealing her credit card and running up a bill of 150,000 Baht, but they did nothing. The exact address of Hall and Nittaya was known up in Pathum Thani at the time.

"They could have made another arrest in early December when he was working at WatMapKha School in Rayong.

"And then again in March when he was reportedly staying in the top floor of the family townhouse. The police went to the house but were not allowed in by my ex mother-in-law. In fact, they only reluctantly went to the house after tons of persuading by me.”

What did the Thai police do when Darrin gave them the mobile number for Hall?  Well, they called it and asked him to come in and see them.   Hall, naturally bogged off again.

His arrest was delayed further by the American authorities who had to formally establish that Hall was in fact not dead and that his death was faked.

The arrest comes finally after the paperwork was produced by the U.S.authorities.

Nittaya was easily tracked in Bangkok and this time she had no option but to tell the authorities, where Hall, who spieled about his fictional time with the US Special Forces, was living.
But did she tip him off.  Police caught him on Koh Samui at Nathon boat pier.





Ahh..Somewhere this will go down as a triumph of the long arm of the law. 

In May this year CBS cancelled the 'procedural television series' -
'Criminal Minds - Beyond Borders'.

This show followed 'an elite team of FBI agents of the fictional International Response Team (IRT) tasked with solving cases that involve American citizens on international soil.'

Wiki: 'In television, "procedural" specifically refers to a genre of programs in which a problem is introduced, investigated and solved all within the same episode. These shows tend to be hour-long dramas, and are often (though not always) police or crime related.[citation needed]

The general formula for a police procedural involves the commission or discovery of a crime at the beginning of the episode, the ensuing investigation, and the arrest or conviction of a perpetrator at the end of the episode.'

In fact without laying on a lot of cash US authorities can rarely get involved in police work in foreign countries. 

The norm, according to one foreign liaison law enforcement officer is 'flattery, encouragement, entertainment and reward'. The reward comes in the form of plaques, and expenses.

Procedural television is of course fiction.

Picture: Jackson Hall (Khao Sod)


http://www.cullmantimes.com/news/man-wanted-on-child-sex-abuse-charges-suspected-of-fleeing/article_7cb91e0e-98ad-11e7-80cb-6f9dea65e2f6.html

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/crimecourtscalamity/crime-crime/2017/09/23/fugitive-american-pedophile-suspect-arrested-samui/

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THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW - CRYPTO CASH - A 'LORD' AND A SCRAP DEALER

September 28, 2017, 3:15 pm
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It’s a no news day on this website so I can report that Mark Hallett, a Briton wanted on fraud charges totalling nearly $4million by the Avon and Somerset Police is still at liberty and by all reports has hopped it to the neighbouring countries of Laos and Vietnam.

But wait out...this tale of expats does get a little bit more interesting.

Mark Hallett, a former scrap dealer from North Perrot, Somerset, readers may recall, had a few scams going in Bangkok with ‘Lord’ Geoffrey Bond, such as bars called Wolfs and Spanks and a ‘high class escort agency (see here). 

He also helped the late boiler room king Glendon Bullard with some of his investments in the ‘Game’ pub in Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok.

Alas Somerset and Avon Police’s attempts to bring Hallett to justice have failed and its now been ten years.  

They were optimistic last year when Hallett was picked up in Bangkok on immigration charges when police did in fact discover that the former scrap dealer was wanted in the UK for a semi-precious metals Ponzi.  But he was released short afterwards. 


I trust this had nothing to do with the vast sums he had transferred from the UK to Thailand through banks, and presumably much more in suitcases. 

But I fear I may be wrong on this.

However, since then, Thai police have been contacting me direct to tell me that if British police want Hallett arrested they need to provide the paperwork. This is a bit odd as Thai police are blocking this site.

The officer, who, initially at least, knew where Hallett was, said he had asked the National Crime Agency, whose job it is to do this, many times, but it had not happened.

To emphasise the point the senior Thai police officer in ‘Transnational Crime’ even got a friend on U.S. Law Enforcement to ring up and tell me. ‘You Brits ought to get your act together. Just get Interpol to issue a Red Notice. That will do the trick. That is all the Thais need.’

This of course was clearly not my job. But I duly contacted the NCA and told them what had been told me.  ‘Is this for a story?’ the man in the media office asked. ‘No,’ I said. ‘At this stage, I am just helping you with your enquiries’.

I checked a few months later.  The NCA were back at their officious best. ‘We do not discuss individual cases. You need to contact Avon and Somerset’.  

I did not want to discuss the case. I know what the case is. I just wanted to know what the NCA were doing about having Hallet arrested. 

I went back to Avon and Somerset Police who naturally  replied: ‘You need to speak to the NCA they the people responsible for Hallett now he is abroad’ and so it went on.  

The last missive yesterday was from Avon and Somerset Police who merely reported: ‘No change’.

Anyway, there was direct dialogue between Avon and Somerset and the Thai police direct (see picture below) and despite the Force’s public announcement that they intended to get their man there appeared to confirmation therein that no international arrest warrant had ever been issued – although there is one valid in the U.K.




Of course, the investigation of fraud is not a forte of the British police, as newspapers readers in Britain will know.

Sometimes it can be complex. Victims never get their cash back – so there are no police hero-grams.  There are not enough officers capable of unravelling the frauds and the big banks, through which most of the fraud cash flows, are pretty much untouchable – and in any case  big banks recruit from British police fraud squads giving ex-officers high profile security roles.

Hence ironically, police once hired to investigate fraud, start protecting the assets of fraudsters.

Here’s a link to a Daily Telegraph journalist’s take on fraud. If you report a fraud to ‘Action Fraud’ which is about the only place you can do it in the U.K., expect a minimum six weeks to see if a decision has been made to act on it. Anything under £1million – it seems not very likely.

Mark Hallett’s former business partner in Bangkok, Lord Geoffrey Bond, (he’s a lord of the manor – one of these paid for titles not an aristocrat) is now in Vietnam. He's moved on from such projects as such as a high class escort service in Bangkok and Pleasure Worldwide.


Readers may recall that ‘Lord Bond’ boasted in Bangkok that he was the Honorary Consul for Montenegro.  Now he is boasting that he is the Honorary Consul to Vanuatu in Vietnam. Geoffrey says he has now also taken up Vanuatu citizenship.

As such he says he has authority to sell citizenship to Vanuatu to all comers, well, people who have too much money I guess, but providing they do not have a bad record, whatever that entails. 


The price according to his website, which seems to have been created in May, is US$350,000.  

A Vanuatu passport enables the holder to avoid paying tax, and non-visa entry to a wide range of countries including the UK and all Schengen countries.

All you have to do is have lots of cash in the bank and sign allegiance to Vanuatu in your application for a passport and then tax dodge to your hearts’ content under the Vanuatu Economic Rehabilitation Program (VERP). 

You do not even have to set foot on Vanuatu soil. Just trolley off to Lord Geoffrey’s offices in Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, and, but he may not be there, Sukhumvit 22, Bangkok.


This from Wikipedia. 
‘In late 2009, a scandal arose over the issuance of a Vanuatu passport to Amarendra Nath Ghosh. Ghosh was Vanuatu's erstwhile honorary consul in Thailand. In addition to the diplomatic passport to which his position entitled him, Ghosh had also managed to obtain an ordinary Vanuatu passport, a privilege legally restricted to Vanuatu citizens. Ghosh had never applied for naturalisation as a Vanuatu citizen, but had honorary citizenship in connection with his position.’
The VERP scheme finished in January and while Geoffrey is still advertising it, it has now been replaced by the DSP (Development Support Program) passport, which you can get direct from the government for US$130,000.  

So, ignoring Lord Bond’s advice will save you a pretty penny.
According to the Vanuatu Digest:

 “This will avoid the sort of situation we have seen where persons of unsuitable character and professional quality continue to hold important positions.”
If you do not have a Vanuatu passport and still want to hide your money and spend it freely all over the world without any questions Lord Geoff has come up with the Nummus card.

I have just received his prospectus for the launch Bond’s Nummus crypto cash offering.  

This is a follow on to Bit Coin. A ‘selected few’ could join this scheme by depositing 250,000 Swiss francs. For that they get 2500 Series A shares @ 100 Swiss francs per share.


‘The 21st century has failed our society. Retail banks now act for Governments in auditing and controlling movements of value (I think he means money laundering) The banking system has failed the people, it’s clients, and is bringing commerce and trade for SME businesses to a grinding halt…. Crypto provides an alternative. 



I’m torn here. Do I go for the Nummus offering so I can claim I’ve got a 250,000 Swiss franc investment in ‘crypto cash’, or shall I sell my soul to Vanuatu?

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2015/03/the-sophisticated-berks-of-bangkok.html

http://www.andrew-drummond.news/sophisticated-british-berk-arrested-thai-police/

http://www.zavannagroup.com/downloads/Vanuatu%20VERP%20Information%20Memorandum%20JUNE2016pdf.pdf

https://vanuatudigest.com/2017/01/06/new-category-of-ni-vanuatu-citizenship-introduced-by-government-for-us130000-per-application/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/11812377/Victim-of-fraud-Why-the-authorities-WONT-investigate.html


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HUMILIATED THAI COMPANY NOW SEEKS TO JAIL ITS MIGRANT WORKERS

October 4, 2017, 3:15 am
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In what would seem an almost unbelievable move, were it not Thailand, the poultry company Thammakaset, which was last month ordered by the Supreme Court to pay 1.7 million baht to migrant Burmese workers whom IT abused…is now trying to get them into jail.


At Don Muang court in Bangkok today the company laid criminal charges against 14 migrant workers for criminal defamation against the former workers.  The motive – well it’s difficult to see anything other than spite for the loss of face they were subjected to.

The company will not get its cash back but presumably want the defendants to spend all the cash they have been awarded, to defend themselves. 

They could even go to jail if the court is influenced, as these are charges carrying a jail sentence of up to 18 months.

They will almost certainly stop the defendants returning to their homes in Burma but today at the court they were each bailed in the sum of 20,000 baht.  

Judging by the photo below from their legal team they are well represented. And present at the hearing were representatives of the Finnish, Swedish and Netherlands Embassies and also from the UNHCR.

In this foot shooting exercise it looks like the migrant workers will not have to dig into their own pockets.




Here’s the statement from the Migrant Workers Rights Network.

Today (4th Oct) at 10am (GMT+7), Don Muang Magistrate's Court in Bangkok, Thailand has scheduled for the indictment on two separate criminal charges of 14 migrant workers from Myanmar embroiled in a landmark case in which the workers alleged forced labour and other rights violations at Thammakaset 2 poultry farm in Lopburi Province of Central Thailand 

Thammakaset Company Ltd. filed criminal prosecutions against the 14 workers in October 2016, alleging offences of criminal defamation and also giving false information to public officials in relation to the worker’s complaint in July 2016 to the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT). This complaint concerned alleged abuse at the Farm and the worker’s failure to receive an adequate remedy. If found guilty of these two offenses, under sections 137 and 326 of the Thai Criminal Code, the workers could be imprisoned for up to one and half years and/or fined up to 21, 000 Thai Baht (US$628).

As best practice in accordance with the United Nation's Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP on BHR), two Nordic poultry importers and a Thai poultry exporter will cover bail costs for the 14 workers up to €15,000 (588, 000 Thai Baht). Following arrest, indictment and pleas of not guilty at today's court hearing, this contribution should ensure the workers are immediately released temporarily from detention on bail pending a full criminal trial, with potential additional conditions on freedom of movement overseas imposed by the Court. The full trial of the workers is expected to commence in November 2017.

Previously on 14th September 2017, Thailand's Supreme Court dismissed Thammakaset’s second and final appeal requesting overturning of a 1st August 2016 compensation order by Lopburi Department of Labour Protection and Welfare (DLPW) requiring 1.7 million Thai baht (US$52, 000) in past wages be paid by the farm to the 14 workers concerning their alleged abuse. The workers will receive this compensation in the coming days. 

The worker’s own litigation filed in September 2016, claiming 44 million baht (US$1.25m) in damages and compensation for abuses suffered, remains pending a final ruling of the Supreme Court, expected later this year. Thammakaset 2 farm was previously contracted to supply poultry for export by Betagro Group and for this reason the worker’s compensation claim was filed against both Thammakaset Farm, Betagro as well as Lopburi DLPW officials.

The 14 workers consider the 2016 DLPW order doesn’t award them adequate compensation for up to 5 years of abusive work conditions at Thammakaset. The workers alleged working days up to 20 hours and forced overtime including sleeping in chicken rearing areas overnight. Further, the workers alleged unlawful deduction of salaries, threats of further deductions, unlawful confiscation of identity documents and limited freedom of movement.

Two of the workers were charged with multiple counts of theft from an employer, carrying up to seven years imprisonment if found guilty, following a police complaint filed by Thammakaset in June 2016. The complaint alleged time-cards were removed from the employer’s possession and given to DLPW officials as evidence of rights violations and long working hours. The case was recommended for prosecution by Lopburi Province police but was dropped following an order not to prosecute by the province's Public Prosecutor’s Office. Thammakset however recently revived the case by filing new private theft prosecutions against the two workers at Lopburi Court, thereby side stepping public prosecution officials.

In November 2016, Thammakaset filed criminal defamation and computer crimes litigation against former MWRN international affairs advisor Andy Hall at Bangkok South Criminal Court concerning his social media campaigning on the case. Hall left Thailand days after the prosecution citing inability to work amidst increasing judicial harassment as his reason.

The imminent arrest of the 14 workers in this case has attracted considerable international concern including a statement by the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and a joint open letter to the Thai Prime Minister by 87 businesses, civil society organisations, trade unions and members of the European Parliament. On two separate occasions, five UN Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights and the UN Working Group on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations have officially sent letters of allegation to the Thai Government given the human rights implications of the case.

Statements on the case have been issued by Human Rights Watch and Fortify Rights, whilst in an unprecedented open letter, the EU's Foreign Trade Association (FTA) called for an 'Out of Court Settlement' in response to increasing concern by its members, including European retailers and poultry importers. The International Trade Union Congress (ITUC) highlighted the case in an August 2017 submission on Thailand’s alleged ongoing breaches of ILO Convention 29 on Forced Labour to the ILO’s Committee of Expert in Geneva, Switzerland.

Last week the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), representing the United Kingdom's leading retailers, trade unions and civil society groups, was engaged in Bangkok in behind-the-scenes attempts to bring about a negotiated settlement to this dispute in advance of the 14 workers arrest today. Thai Tuna Industry Association members also previously provided humanitarian assistance, registration and employment for the 14 workers, who continue to work in Thailand’s seafood export sector following their resignation from Thammakaset in June 2016.

The Thai Broiler Processing Exporters Association, whose membership includes both Thammakaset and Betagro, responded to pressure resulting from coverage of this case and overseas poultry buyer’s deepening concerns on labour conditions in the sector by launching with the DLPW and Department of Livestock Development a Good Labour Practices (GLP) initiative for the poultry industry in August 2016. However, at the same time in response to media coverage, the Director General of the DLPW denied the severity of abuses alleged by the 14 workers insisting the case was a labour dispute between workers and their employer and not one of forced labour, human trafficking, overwork or unlawful document retention.

With no adequate remedy in sight from utilising the DLPW channels, the workers and MWRN therefore also petitioned the NHRCT in July 2016 requesting a review of the case. In its own report, relied on by Thammakaset in launching its criminal prosecutions against the workers, the NHRCT however backed up the DLPW position. With support from MWRN, the workers then submitted a pending complaint to the Lawyers Council of Thailand requesting the accuracy of and process of compiling and investigating the NHRCT report be investigated.

The Thammakset case continues at a time when Thailand’s migrant worker management and protection policies as well as human trafficking record are under increased global scrutiny. Thailand is the world’s 4th largest poultry exporter supplying chicken, often for use in processed or ready-made meals, mostly to European Union and Japanese markets. Thailand’s poultry export industry has come under increasing scrutiny for its poor labour conditions since 2015 research reports published by watchdog groups Finnwatch and Swedewatch.

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IS BRITISH LORD IN BANGKOK JUNKET THE NEW FACE OF AN ISLAND NATION?

October 14, 2017, 7:37 pm
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CONTROVERSY AS FORMER BANGKOK BAR OWNER MOVES IN ON SOUTH PACIFIC ISLAND ECONOMY

The island nation of Vanuatu is concerned about a former ex-pat Bangkok businessman.

Rather, observers of a recent junket to Bangkok by MPs of the country - formerly known as the 'New Hebrides'- to seal a deal to market to the country's passports, are worried.

Vanuatu has been viewed in the west as a nation famous for it's 'Cargo Cults' tribal people who pay homage to such celebrities as the Duke of Edinburgh, and after the Second World War.


Now there's another crazy story that that a large part of its economy is being taken over by an English 'Lord' with a colourful history in Bangkok's night life.

Geoffrey Bond (right)
He is of course, 'Lord' Geoffrey Bond, who has featured on this site not only in relation to his activities in the nightlife of Bangkok with very dubious partners, but more recently about the launch of his new crypto-currency ‘Nummus Coin’. 

Now he has attracted the attention of the media in the Vanuatu.

According to the Vanuatu Daily Post, Bond invited the delegation of MP’s from the small, but expensive island paradise, to Bangkok, to conduct the official appointment of Harvey Law Group as passport sales agent for the country.

The Vanuatu Post stated: 

“Vanuatu’s non-tax revenues have grown from VT 1.56 billion in 2014 to an anticipated VT 4.3 billion in 2018. Nearly all this income is derived from the sale of passports. This is the country’s single largest income source after the VAT”

Napuat
Andrew Napuat, who is Parliamentary Secretary for Provincial Affairs, led the delegation to Bangkok, which may not seem to many as the most natural place in the world to celebrate such an event as Harvey Law is actually based in the Vanuatu capital 'Port Villa'. 

But all sorts sign deals, hold conferences, in Bangkok. Why not Vanuatu MPs?

Besides, ‘Lord Bond’ – well he’s not a lord really. He just bought a Lord of the Manor title – with his long history in Thailand could have a contacts book full of people who want to hide their money.  


'Lord Bond' is now, according to the ‘Post’, Chairman of the Vanuatu Information Centre, which is apparently based on the 6th floor of the Meridien Hotel in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam.  

Again, one would expect such an organisation to be in Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila.

He is also in Vietnam as chairman of Nummus Entertainment, where he is ‘working with the Vietnam Government on the Online Lottery and Floating Casino licenses.’

Hallett - giving the finger
These are heady days and a far cry when he was running 'Wolf's Bar' bar in Bangkok with the likes of Briton Mark Hallett, wanted by the Avon and Somerset police for frauds totalling nearly £4 million.

But, of course, the Vanuatu MPs appear not to be shaken by any stuff appearing on the net. When a Post journalist pointed to the negative publicity Bond has received on this site, Andrew Napuat replied.

 “I am surprised you are linked to Andrew Drummond who has been jailed in Thailand and has arrest warrants for defamatory articles on people.”

Ouch! But his all news to me as I have only been in Thailand’s jails to visit criminals or the accused. 

Along with literally 50,000 others I have of course been sued in Thailand under the Thailand’s criminal libel laws.  But I have seen my main pursuers off: - two running abroad with their tails between their legs after being convicted of the real criminal charges of extortion and fraud. (Messrs Brian Goudie and Drew Noyes).

David Hanks
The one case I lost was never going to end in a jail sentence as I merely refused to remove a post referring to David John Hanks as a former ‘pimp’. 

Indeed, Australian Securities and Investment Commission records show that David Hanks, a Brit-Australian, was the former proprietor and license holder for ‘Masquerades’ a registered brothel’ in Keysborough, Melbourne.

Never mind that. David Napuat has clearly been pointed in the wrong direction. I wish Vanuatu all the luck in the world.

The Post poses:

 “The question here is not one of legality, of who did what when. The question is whether, all things considered, the people of Vanuatu feel that ‘Lord’ Geoffrey Bond is the best possible candidate to act as the face of Vanuatu to the rest of the world?” 
Mr Napuat’s party leader, Ralph Regenvanu, pleads ignorance about the man’s character and standing.
 “We dealt with him in good faith on the basis of his status as Honorary Consul for Vanuatu.” 
The Graon mo Jastis party has always campaigned on an anti-corruption platform.
I should add that this party ‘Land (ground) and Justice’ also campaigns against foreign ownership of land and businesses on Vanuatu.

You can now buy Vanuatu citizenship with Bitcoin.  This has nothing to do with Geoffrey Bond’s launch of his new crypto-currency ‘Nummus Coin’, which I highlighted in an earlier story. But it does pose questions.  But Nummus Coin is registered to a Vanuatu address.

Lord Geoffrey by all accounts is a ‘long time player’. We have have to wait a while before Nummus Coin, launched at the end of last month, kicks in.

But if the Vanuatu government is being briefed that I have done stir in jail in Thailand it may well be that may be that it has been briefed erroneously in other matters. 

There is certainly big cash to made in this business of selling citizenship. On Vanuatu passport sales, the agent gets about 10 per cent, US$20,000, on all passport sales, according to the website imidaily.com.


“To pique the interest of promoters and agents globally, the scheme comes pre-built with a commission of US$20,000 (and in certain cases, even more,” said James Harris of the Vanuatu Information Centre at a launch in London in June.

From Vietnam, ‘Lord Bond’, acting as Vanuatu’s Honorary Consul, offered Vanuatu citizenship as US$350,000 on his own website. 



Now the programme has been changed. Under the new government Development Support Programme it is now offered at US$120,000 – or whatever that is in Bitcoin.

Seems foreigners could be making a killing in Vanuatu perhaps best known in the west for the endless television documentaries on its ‘Cargo Cults’ and tribal worship of people like the Duke of Edinburgh, and former US servicemen known as ‘John Frum’ and ‘Tom Navy’.

This all bring up memories of Sparta Matrix, the boiler room founded in the Philippines, which ended up bidding for infrastructures in Croatia with Philip Wainwright courting the Prime Minister.
Geoffrey Bond says he has spent most of his working life in Asia. He needs to fill in the detail with the Vanuatu government. One things we do know. He’s been proved to be not fussy about where the cash comes from.
Links:
http://dailypost.vu/opinion/bitcoin-of-the-realm/article_644693e4-796e-5a71-819f-16dd900acb31.html

https://imidaily.com/program-updates/vanuatu-launches-brand-new-citizenship-program-20k-commission-to-kickstart-agent-interest/

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2017/09/the-long-arm-of-law-crypto-cash-lord.html

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2015/03/the-sophisticated-berks-of-bangkok.html

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2015/03/ive-done-nothing-wrong-says-hawald.html

http://www.zavannagroup.com/downloads/Vanuatu%20VERP%20Information%20Memorandum%20JUNE2016pdf.pdf

'BEWARE YOU WILL BE IN CHOPPING PARTS OF MEAT IN VANUATU'

COMMENT: The article in the Vanuatu Post obviously provoked some controversy. I received a Facebook message from an islander last night.

“Hi Andrew Drummond. You better watch your feet getting in Vanuatu you will be in chopping part of meats beware of Vanuatuan people searching for your face and name! I hope Thai court do rot your white ass in hell for the rest of your life! Stupid fat white pig! Byeeee for now.”
A few minutes later this was followed by the comment:

 “Oh accidently my bad I sent the message to the wrong person forgive me! I referred to the journalist of UK lol”.

I replied immediately that he must have got the right guy. I was in the UK. So, we had a conversation and now we are friends. 

He had been directed to one of the numerous websites set up to discredit my investigations in Thailand by those who had been celebrated here. In the internet age of disinformation this is de rigeur.

This was his parting message.

“Sometimes in life people will get to use your name in a ruined way. What a poor thing! Only the way is to fix up and it may take time to clean a person’s name. Sorry for running you time you too have a good night sleep xo.”
'Poor thing'
I think this poor thing would like the Vanuatu people. 

Another thing MPs there have been campaigning about is a return to tribal law, replacing court trials and where the Chief decides. The reasoning behind this is to avoid ridiculous legal fees.

This would be infinitely better than going to a Thai court for justice and would have been an excellent way to deal with for instance the guys that sued me, namely fake American lawyer Drew Walter Noyes and fake British barrister Brian Goudie, aka Goldie. 

Noyes in Vietnam
Noyes incidentally is now in Green Valley Drive*, Wilmington, North Carolina, having fled his conviction for trying to extort the Thonglor Beauty Clinic in Pattaya out of 7 million baht and prison sentence.  

Like Brian Goudie, from Falkirk, Scotland, he could pay the court a suitable sum, to leave the country on urgent business, promising to return to hear the result of his appeal. 

Noyes has been trying to make a living advising foreigners how to get ‘Green Cards’ to the United States and even put his house up on Airbnb – but took it down very quickly, due to reader reaction.

Brian Goudie 
Goudie, who was jailed for three years for extortion, to add to his history of a six-year-jail sentence in Australia for theft, and running from a police fraud investigation in Scotland, is reported to be back in Scotland and has been putting out stories that his Thai girlfriend is studying at university in Edinburgh. 

Both Goudie and Noyes lost their appeals.

*Noyes paid his tax on Green Valley Drive by selling worthless shares in his now defunct Pattaya Mail newspaper for 1 million baht and a work permit, to a native American Indian from southern California.


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THEY CAN MAKE BANK MACHINES DISAPPEAR. NOW HOUSES?

October 16, 2017, 8:06 am
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AS THAI POLICE PANTOMIME CONTINUES LOOKING FOR CRIMINALS POSING AS FOOTBALLERS SHOULDN'T THEY BE LOOKING FOR SAFE-CRACKERS POSING AS
ESTATE AGENTS? 

Two months ago, Thai Police announced a crackdown on foreign criminals in Thailand. 

Deputy Tourist Police commissioner Surachet Hakpan told the ‘Bangkok Post’ that these foreign criminals usually overstay their visas after entering the country, "disguising themselves as language teachers or football players". 

The truth is that the problem is not so much with foreign criminals, but with the Thai police. Because any foreign criminal worth his salt, strikes a deal with the Thai police rapidly. They certainly get tooled up with the right visas, even on occupations banned to foreigners in Thailand.

And some have told me frequently that they even arrange ‘walk throughs’ at Suvarnabhumi airport.

One old lag, who I have written about, said recently: ‘You’re more of a problem to them than the police are.”

Thai police would be better of hunting down foreign criminals posing as criminals, and failing that try estate agents, Rotary Club chairmen, foreign police volunteers, and international advisers to city mayors.

So, readers are advised to be cautious when dealing with the Smart Choice Building Company along the Thepprasit Road, in Pattaya Jomtien.  Its run by an Essex Brit called Shaun Tracey.


He was the partner of fellow Essex lad Alex Milbourn and both were caught say Thai police, robbing ATM’s along Thailand’s eastern seaboard.

After a press conference which made the Bangkok Post and most of the Pattaya newspapers both disappeared from the system, and of course did not go to court. 

The Pattaya Daily News labelled them ‘dumb and dumber’ thieves, as they were pulling ATMs off their foundations using rope and a pick-up truck, belonging to Alex Milbourn’s father, and were tracked down after the shop owner who sold them the rope (see picture) told police.  Milbourn’s father used to run with British underworld figure Eddie ‘King Cone’.

Both lads cottoned on to the fact that they did not need to rob ATMs in Thailand to make good money. They could simply defraud their fellow foreigners. Milbourn followed the easiest fraud of all.

He sold houses twice first to the punters and then secondly to Thai money lenders. It was basically  an adaption of a well tested plan used to deprive Irishman Colin Vard and Briton Ian Rance of their homes in Phuket – using fake powers of attorney to grab the chanotes or land deeds and control the property.

The Thai Police promised to put an end to these scams but the idea has caught on and now property dealers are widely enacting the scams with punters buying from abroad, who come over, move into the properties they have prepaid, and then find when they have their chanotes checked, that massive loans have to be paid off on the properrty (up to the value of the property) .

Facing private court action Millbourn fled back to Leigh-on-Sea where at 164 Leigh Road, he is a director of Burpaha Estate, estate agents. Perhaps he has taken that name from Burapha Villas which were on his books in Pattaya or perhaps the Burapha racing circuit. Then again perhaps he can’t spell.  In any case it won’t mean much to people in Leigh-on-Sea.

Anyway this is a warning. I am not accusing Tracey of breaking the law. He will of course have taken the usual steps with crooked Thai officials to ensure he is within the law. But he is keeping his head down as in the pictures here.



But if you are buying a house from either of these two characters and something goes wrong. The one still in Thailand will not be prosecuted. Thai police will be chasing footballers and school-teachers.

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LORD BOND'S BANGKOK JUNKET BITCOIN CRYPTO PLAN TAKES A DIVE

October 17, 2017, 5:45 am
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Plans to accept payment in Bitcoin for citizenship or the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu have been shelved. The move, announced by Lord Geoffrey Bond, once a leading figure in Bangkok’s ‘night life’ has been declared a non-starter.
Bond, right, with David Napuat, Secetary for Provincial Affairs and lawyers,
Bastien Trelcat and James Harris
from Harvey Law (Immigration Investment Insider)

But Bond – he’s not really an English lord – still apparently carries authorisation to handle what the Vanuatu Post has described as 'the country’s single largest income source after the VAT.'

He is currently an Honorary Consul for Vanuatu in Vietnam from where he also runs the Vanuatu Information Centre, which sells the citizenship packages.

In Bangkok Bond went into partnership with Briton Mark Hallett, who is wanted about fraud totalling nearly £4million by Avon and Somerset Police. 




He ran a company called Pleasure Worldwide Ltd, and ‘Wolf’s Bar and Restaurant on the Sukhumvit Road, which folded in 2014 leaving investors out of pocket.  He also promoted an art club called ‘Spanks’ which promoted ‘an aristocratic feel. More playful, lest stuffy’. Nothing came of it.

This week following reports carried globally including by Bloomberg and the Financial Times that Vanuatu would accept Bitcoin for citizenship, the Vanuatu Government announced that it would not.




Following its own original report (above) on the Bitcoin plan while highlighting investigations on this website the Vanuatu Daily Post yesterday reported the following.


“The Citizenship Office, representing the Citizenship Commission, is presenting to the media and other agencies in Vanuatu, that the Citizenship Office has not got any legal confirmation on any so call Bitcoin payment as stated in the media outlets,” a statement by the Acting Secretary General (SG) of the Citizenship Office, Samuel Garae, conveyed yesterday. 
“The Office of the Citizenship is giving an assurance to all the Citizenship Designated Agents, that all the payments concerning the DSP program, will still be in US dollars as prescribe by the Citizenship Regulation,” stated Mr. Garae.
This flew in the face of a press release put out by Lord Bond’s Vanuatu Information Centre, which published part of a letter of authorisation for the Bitcoin plan purported to be from the Office of the Parliamentary Secretary – Provincial Affairs.





The Government of Vanuatu, represented by Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Hon Andrew Solomon Napuat MP, has confirmed in an official letter addressed to Geoffrey Bond, Chairman of the VIC, the entity that handles all applications to the Vanuatu DSP Citizenship Program, that the Government supports the VIC’s taking payment in Bitcoin. This marks the first time a citizenship by investment program obtains official endorsement to take payments in a crypto-currency. 
“This is a significant step forward in our efforts, working with the Government of Vanuatu to propel the Vanuatu DSP to the forefront of CIPs globally”, said James Harris, Managing Director of the Vanuatu Information Centre Network.  
He added, “there remains some suspicion surrounding the use of crypto-currency in financial transactions, and some fears that it can be related to undesirable activities. In fact, the opposite is true, as crypto-currency exists in a fully traceable ledger where the entire history of its creation and trading is visible. Therefore, our pioneering of the use of Bitcoin payment is a further strengthening of AML processes, and at the same time provides enormous flexibility in a world where international financial transactions have become ever more difficult”. 
Bond
Chairman of VIC, Geoffrey Bond commented, “While attempts have been made in the past to effect payments for citizenship by investment programs via Bitcoin, these efforts never had the political stamp of approval, and were shut down as a consequence. 
"However in this case, the Government of Vanuatu has explicitly expressed a desire to be at the forefront of adopting new technologies, officially encouraging the VIC to receive payments in Bitcoin.”  
He added, “In addition to the normal due diligence probity checks that are required to obtain Vanuatu Citizenship, all Bitcoin transactions will be run through our partner’s Australian Exchange and meet with the normal compliance requirements imposed by the Australian Financial Regulator.” 
“I’m convinced Vanuatu’s bold move will give them a considerable competitive advantage in the citizenship market,” said Christian Nesheim, an investment migration specialist who advised the VIC and the Vanuatu Government on Bitcoin adoption during their visit to Bangkok last week. 
“Many early investors in Bitcoin would like to realize some of their earnings without incurring large capital gains taxes. Ideally, then, they would convert their cryptocurrency into tangible assets in a low-tax jurisdiction. So far, the asset classes available to this type of investor have been limited, but we are now seeing an increasing number of crypto-to-real-assets type investments on offer.
The Parliamentary Secretary for Provincial Affairs David Napuat.  led a delegation of Vanuatu MPs to Bangkok at the end of September. 

The purpose of the trip appeared to be to celebrate the Bitcoin deal and the appointment of Harvey Law Group as first agent of Vanuatu’s Development Support Programme, which takes in income from the passport sales. But that had already been celebrated in Vanuatu.

Harvey Law handles matters for Bond’s Vanuatu Information Centre. It has a Bangkok representative office.

When questioned about Lord Bond’s suitability for his cash handling role and guided to information on this site David Napuat replied told the Vanuatu Daily Post:“I am surprised you are linked to Andrew Drummond who has been jailed in Thailand and has arrest warrants for defamatory articles on people.”

This of course came as a considerable surprise to me but I must assume David Napuat is not internet savvy.






Coincidentally the trip to Bangkok also coincided with the very day Geoffrey Bond had listed for the launch of his ‘Nummus Coin’ crypto-currency. This is one of that increasing number of crypto-to-real-assets type investments on offer' following the seeming success of Bitcoin. 





However, Bitcoin still has vociferous critics who predict the ‘bubble will burst’.

Is this just a coincidence?   And what were the M.P.s really doing in Bangkok. The Vanuatu Daily Post has its work cut out.

Lord Bond need not be disheartened. James Harris, who works for Harvey Law and also represented VIC at a re-launch of the passport scheme in London in June said: 

"To pique the interest of promoters and agents globally, the scheme comes pre-built with a commission of US$20,000 -and in certain cases, even more.” 
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PROTESTER IS 'DISAPPEARED' ON EVE OF ROYAL CREMATION

October 25, 2017, 4:36 pm
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MILITARY DETENTION OR A TRIP TO THE RIVER KWAI

Concerns have been raised over he safety of a critic of the Thai monarchy, who was seized yesterday by the Thai military on the eve of the lavish cremation ceremonies for the late Thai King Bumiphol Adulyadej.


Ekkachai - file photo
Ekkachai Hongkangwan, a market trader, had announced that he would wear red for the funeral, signifying his anti-monarchy and anti-military junta stance.

He was arrested yesterday morning and contacted Thai Lawyers for Human Rights telling them he had been offered two choices, one detention in a military prison or secondly a trip to the River Kwai at Kanchanaburi. The second alternative was not apparently offered as a holiday.

In 2012 Ekkachai Hongkangwan was sentenced to three years and four months and fined 66,666 Thai baht for selling documentary CDs produced by Australian Broadcasting Corporation and copies of wikileaks documents deemed defaming to the Queen and the Prince, the present King.


"The country’s constitution and criminal code stipulates that His Majesty the King is the head of state and highly revered. No one shall violate or use rights and liberties for any adverse effects. The state and its people have duties to uphold the monarchy system forever… Any defaming speech causing irritation to the feet of His Majesty shall not be acceptable,” according to the judges' verdict.

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights issued the following statement:


"Around 8:24 am on 24 October 2017, a pro-democracy activist Mr Ekkachai Hongkangwan contacted Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), informing that about 11 military officials came to his residence in Bangkok. 
Reportedly, the authorities who declined to give their names and affiliations had Ekkachai choose between having a ‘trip’ to Kanchanburi province or spending time in a military barrack. 
Ekkachai decided to go with the authorities to Kanchanburi during the Royal Cremation scheduled on 26 October 2017. He stated that he was expected to return home the morning of 27 October 2017.  
Ekkachai further stated that a scuffle had ensued as the authorities forcefully pulled and shoved him into a military vehicle, inflicting wounds on his body. 
After the initial contact, Ekkachai could not be contacted since 09:50 am. According to eyewitnesses, there were around five or six military and police vehicles parked in front of his residence, although their affiliations were unknown.  

Previously on 20 October 2017, Ekkachai posted a message on his personal Facebook account saying that he would be wearing a red shirt on 26 October 2017. The post allegedly had prompted the police officials to visit him at his office and warn him to be careful with his words and actions. In response, Ekkachai insisted that he would not commit anything illegal. 
Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) finds the authorities’ actions unlawful;  
1. The above circumstances constitute a ‘detention’ as Ekkachai was not in his best capacity and lacked free will to make a decision whether to join the trip with the military officials. In addition, he was guaranteed neither access nor contact to his family or legal counsel. Until now, it remains unknown where he is being held and which military units have carried out the detention.   
2. Such detention is in breach of Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to which Thailand is a state party and has obligations to comply. It stipulates that no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention and one shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him. In the UN Human Rights Committee’s Concluding Observations to Thailand in March 2017, the Thai Government was recommended to immediately release all persons from arbitrary detention.  
3. In addition, according to Head of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) Order no.3/B.E.2558 (2015)’s Article 6, authorised law enforcement officials were granted power to detain a person for a maximum of seven days without charges. However, it requires that the person must have committed certain offences including violation of Section 112 of the Criminal Code (lese majeste or defaming the Thai monarchy), offences related to national security, offences related to possession of war weapons and explosive devices, or violation of the NCPO orders and announcements. The circumstances that led to Ekkachai's detention remains unclear; his detention is therefore unlawful based on Head of the NCPO Order no.3/B.E.2558 (2015). 
Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) urges the military officials to immediately release Mr Ekkachai Hongkangwan and provide information of grounds for and place of his detention."

The statement is unlikely to have any influence on the military cartel currently running Thailand. 

Vajiralongkorn, Rama X, does not enjoy the reputation of his father the revered King Bhumipol, Rama IX, is one understated way the western media generally refers to the new king.

Despite having been relegated from God Kings to the rank of 'constitutional monarch' in 1932, the monarchy has thrived and the current monarch is one of the richest people in the world.
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NINE YEARS WAIT FOR JUSTICE OVER SHOOTING OF EX-MARINE IN HUA HIN

December 22, 2017, 2:33 pm
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BUT WILL SEATTLE ACADEMIC EVER SEE THE US$500,000 COMPENSATION?


Janpen Oxley (Andrew Chant)
*Thai Supreme Court confirms life sentence against main conspirator – the wife of Briton facing drug charges back home.

*18 Million Thai baht (US$550,000) damages to widow of former U.S. Marine gunned down in Hua Hin.


The Thai Supreme Court has confirmed the life sentence imposed on Janpen ‘Sarah’ Oxley, the wife of Sheffield Briton Darren Oxley, for conspiracy to murder former U.S. Marine Donald Whiting in 2008.


Biff ‘Whiting’, 65, first had his car firebombed then later he gunned down outside his home in the resort town Hua Hin on the Gulf of Thailand, where the King of Thailand keeps his summer palace ‘Far from Worries’.

Biff Whiting with to the right his partner Dolly Samson


Whiting took six bullets. Four pierced his lungs and exited, one was removed from his stomach, and one is still embedded in his spine.

Bullet lodged next to Whiting's spine
Janpen was arrested three months after the shooting after Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva ordered the matter to be cleared up. She was carrying about US$9000 in cash. Its alleged she paid relatives to carry out the actual hit.

Whiting died in 2014. Since the shooting he had been paralysed from the neck down. Whiting had always maintained they he had never spoken to Janpen. 

Oxley, who was the de facto boss of ‘Oxley Homes’, thought to comply with Thai law his majority shareholder was his Thai wife, had fled Britain in 2001 while on trial with six others on drugs charges.

During the trial he was described as ‘violent’ and ‘a mass you do not mess with’.

However, although a bench warrant was issued for his arrest no attempts were made to extradite him back to the U.K.

When a Freedom of Information Act request was made to South Yorkshire Police about the failure to seek extradition the reply was:

Darren Oxley
“To give a statement of the reasons why neither confirming nor denying is appropriate in this case, would itself involve the disclosure of exempt information, therefore under Section 17(4), no explanation can be given. 
This should not be taken as an inference that the information you have requested, does or does not exist”.



Whiting’s partner Dolly Samson now living in Seattle described the verdict as “Satisfying because the verdict was upheld, but disappointed because Darren Oxley successfully hid behind his wife’s skirts. And, I doubt I’ll ever see a single baht.”

Three other defendants received sentences of 33 years and four months.


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‘THE CHILLING EFFECT?' WHAT DOES 'WANTED BY SCOTLAND YARD' MEAN IN THAILAND?

January 15, 2018, 7:59 am
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MONEY MONEY MONEY. IT'S A RICH MAN'S WORLD


Mark Hallett, from Somerset wanted in the UK for fraud and moneylaundering, photographs 1 million baht in a Bangkok
apartrment

When the defence lawyers for Zaw Lynn and Wai Phyo, the two Burmese charged and convicted for the murders in Thailand of Britons David Miller and Hannah Witheridge, pleaded in the High Court in London for the Scotland Yard report on the Thai Police Investigation they were refused.

The ‘chilling effect’ of the release of the report, said Scotland Yard ‘could cause a breakdown in co-operation between the law enforcement authorities of Thailand and the United Kingdom.’
Even worse:

“The ‘chilling effect’ was the ‘substantial and adverse effect on law enforcement, fulfilment of public policy and the UKs security objectives’.

Put another way Scotland Yard was saying: 


‘If we release the report the Thai police may not speak to us anymore.’

That Scotland Yard does not want anything to interfere with the relationship with a police force, in which 80 per cent of its core ‘investigative units’ in the Crime Suppression Division and Central Investigations Bureau were dismissed around the same time being involved in rackets ranging from fraud to illegal wildlife trading, is not surprising.  

Scotland Yard must have a relationship, even if it’s only to arrest criminals, who are not being looked after by the Thai police.

So, let’s keep the relationship friendly. Indeed, as Anya Props argued in the Koh Samui double murder case:


“such is the power of the British public interest that it would still trump private interest.”

But just how effective is this relationship? How are the Thais reciprocating?  


Take this man here, and at the top of the page. He is Briton Mark Hallett. He’s been wanted by Britain’s National Crime Agency for years for a £3.9 million fraud. This former scrap dealer from North Perrott, Somerset fled the South Somerset Court where he faced 13 charges of fraud and money-laundering.

The money laundering relates to all the cash he then removed from the bank, £35,000 of which he wired to Thailand.

Now with nearly £4 million one would not need to revert to fraud.  But once one’s caught the bug, I guess… Well, to cut a long story short Hallett, has been accused of all sorts of rip-offs in Thailand, some with, some without ‘Lord Geoffrey’, who we showed recently trying to introduce the Bitcoin to Vanuatu!
Above right Lord Geoffrey Bond an archtype
for 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels'

In fact, Thonglor Police, who arrested Hallett, announced he was being investigated for scams on foreigners in Bangkok.  

As Thai police do not investigate fraud by foreigners on foreigners unless under high pressure (usually financial) this was either a fib, meaning ‘We’ve had some complaints about him’, or then high pressure had been applied.

Avon and Somerset Police seemed quite hopeful when in May 2016 Hallett was arrested by Thonglor police. A man in their press department hoped for some more positive news within the week.

The answer of course came a few days after the week when Immigration Police, despite knowing he was wanted, released him and even though they had initially stated he was in breach of visa regulations, an offence which requires an immediate deportation.

British Police were hoping to meet Hallett in Heathrow after that trouble-free deportation!

Alas it was not to be. 

Anyway, Hallett, 49, has surfaced again in Bangkok after spending a year or so up north in Chiang Mai.


Crusty Ken
Now he, I hear, he has teamed up with a Danish businessman called Kenneth Reinholt Hansen, 46, from Holbæk, Denmark.

Holbæk is a nice part of the world just across Isefjord in Denmark from Hundested, where I spent many a happy summer holiday as a child and, incidentally, got my first agonizing sunburn on the day (08/08/63) of the ‘Great Train Robbery’.  

Hansen, however, is described as a rather crusty Danish pasty, to be handled with gloves on, who runs a chauffeur car service, and is currently with Hallett selling shares in a hotel in Bangkok.

Meanwhile hats off to the National Crime Agency, who can be seen on British TV picking up east Europeans for shoplifting back home on a regular basis and packing them off home.

And ‘hats off’ to Avon and Somerset Police who remain hopeful the NCA will catch their man courtesy of (and hats off to) the Royal Thai Police, whom, I guess, are still waiting the money.
http://www.andrew-drummond.news/wanted-scotland-yard-chilling-effect-thailand.

Between them they have shown that public interest (the interest of UK public bodies) does indeed over-ride private interest, which in this case is evidently hiding their combined ineptitude.  It has little to do with the victims or justice.

In terms of Hallett’s crimes, one victim is claiming he was defrauded in Thailand out of 14 million Thai baht.  That’s about £318,000.  Ouch!


Links

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2015/03/the-sophisticated-berks-of-bangkok.html

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2017/10/lord-bonds-bangkok-junket-bitcoin-plan.html

http://dailypost.vu/opinion/bitcoin-of-the-realm/article_644693e4-796e-5a71-819f-16dd900acb31.html


http://www.andrew-drummond.news/wanted-scotland-yard-chilling-effect-thailand/
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'MOVE ALONG. THERE'S NOTHING TO SEE HERE!' THAILAND'S FISHING INDUSTRY IN 2018

January 23, 2018, 7:35 am
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Thailand’s effort to put an end to slave labour in the fishing industry is little more then a 'theatrical exercise for international consumption', states a report out today.



While the Thai government scrambled to create a new ordinance for the fishing industry after severe criticism both of fishing methods and trafficked slave labour by the European Union, problems remain rampant.

According to the Human Rights Watch report “Hidden Chains: Forced Labor and Rights Abuses in Thailand’s Fishing Industry,” migrant fishermen continued to be trafficked, paid under the minimum wage, while Thailand had not even passed adequate laws to punish the slave traders.




According to the statement issued in Brussels: 


“Despite significant resources provided to the Thai Ministry of Labour and its departments, there is no effective or systematic inspection of fishers working aboard Thai vessels. For example, in its 2015 report on human trafficking, Thailand revealed that inspections of 474,334 fishery workers failed to identify a single case of forced labor. 
"More recently, over 50,000 inspections of fishers implausibly did not find a single instance where laws on conditions and hours of work, wages, treatment on board, and other issues in the Labour Protection Act of 1998, the 2014 Ministerial Regulation, and attendant regulations had been violated."
 This contrasted starkly with the HRW report which included interviews with 250 fisherman and former fishermen.

Comment: Plus ca change.  Just as former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his then sidekick Newin Chidchob posed eating fried chicken with the message ‘No Bird Flu Here’in the middle of the avian flu crisis, the HRW seems to state that the Thai government is ‘posing’ or ‘lying’ again. 



The full report can be read here

Here follows the statement issued today:

(Brussels, January 23, 2018) – Forced labor and other rights abuses are widespread in Thailand’s fishing fleets despite government commitments to comprehensive reforms, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The report and a 15-minute film were released at a briefing at the European Parliament on January 23.

The 134-page report, “Hidden Chains: Forced Labor and Rights Abuses in Thailand’s Fishing Industry,” describes how migrant fishers from neighboring countries in Southeast Asia are often trafficked into fishing work, prevented from changing employers, not paid on time, and paid below the minimum wage. Migrant workers do not receive Thai labor law protections and do not have the right to form a labor union.

Even though Thailand has received a “yellow card” warning that it could face a ban on exporting seafood to the European Union because of its illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices, and the United States has placed Thailand on the Tier 2 Watch List in its latest Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, Human Rights Watch found widespread shortcomings in the implementation of new government regulations and resistance in the fishing industry to reforms.

“Consumers in Europe, the US, and Japan should be confident that their seafood from Thailand didn’t involve trafficked or forced labor,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Yet despite high-profile commitments by the Thai government to clean up the fishing industry, problems are rampant.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 248 current and former fishers, almost all from Burma and Cambodia, as well as Thai government officials, boat owners and captains, civil society activists, fishing association representatives, and United Nations agency staff. Of those interviewed, 95 were former fishers who survived documented incidents of human trafficking, while the other 153 were, with a few exceptions, still active fishers. The research was carried out in every one of Thailand’s major fishing ports from 2015 to 2017.

Following media exposés on human trafficking and brutalization of fishers on Thai fishing boats in 2014 and 2015, the EU imposed the yellow card for Thailand’s failures under its IUU fishing program. The EU also demanded that Thai fishing fleets stop abusing the rights of undocumented and sometimes trafficked migrants as fishers, and said that Thailand should undertake reforms to end the abuses. The US TIP program has pressured Thailand by keeping it on the Tier 2 Watch List, one step above the bottom tier.

The Thai government responded by scrapping antiquated fishing laws and issuing a new ordinance to regulate the fishing industry. The government extended application of the key provisions of labor law regulating wages and conditions of work to fishing vessels, and established in law some International Labour Organization (ILO) treaty provisions through adoption of the 2014 Ministerial Regulation concerning Labour Protection in Sea Fishery Work. Migrant fishers were required to have legal documents and be accounted for on crew lists as boats departed and returned to port, helping to end some of the worst abuses, such as captains killing crew members. Thailand also created the Port-in, Port-out (PIPO) system to require boats to report for inspections as they departed and returned to port, and established procedures for inspection of fishing vessels at sea.

Some measures, such as vessel monitoring systems and limiting time at sea to 30 days, have led to important improvements for fishers. However, measures to address forced labor and other important labor and human rights protection measures often prioritize form over results, Human Rights Watch found. The labor inspection regime is largely a theatrical exercise for international consumption, Human Rights Watch said. For example, under the PIPO system, Human Rights Watch found officials speak to ship captains and boat owners and check documents but rarely conduct interviews with migrant fishers.

Despite significant resources provided to the Thai Ministry of Labour and its departments, there is no effective or systematic inspection of fishers working aboard Thai vessels. For example, in its 2015 report on human trafficking, Thailand revealed that inspections of 474,334 fishery workers failed to identify a single case of forced labor. More recently, over 50,000 inspections of fishers implausibly did not find a single instance where laws on conditions and hours of work, wages, treatment on board, and other issues in the Labour Protection Act of 1998, the 2014 Ministerial Regulation, and attendant regulations had been violated.

Requirements that fishers hold their own identification documents, receive and sign a written contract, and be paid monthly are frustrated by employer practices which hold fishers in debt bondage and ensure they cannot change employers. The lack of a stand-alone forced labor offense in Thai criminal law leaves a huge gap in law enforcement and deterrence.

“The Thai government’s lack of commitment means that regulations and programs to prevent forced labor in the fishing industry are failing,” Adams said. “International producers, buyers, and retailers of Thai seafood have a key role in ensuring that forced labor and other abuses come to an end.”

In some respects, the situation has gotten worse in recent years, Human Rights Watch found. For instance, the government’s “pink card” registration scheme, introduced in 2014 to reduce the number of undocumented migrants working in Thailand, has tied fishers’ legal status to specific locations and employers whose permission is needed to change jobs, creating an environment ripe for abuse. The pink card scheme, as well as practices where migrant workers are not informed about or provided copies of required employment contracts, have become means through which unscrupulous ship owners and skippers conceal coercion and deception behind a veneer of compliance. In this way, routine rights abuses go unchecked by complacent government officials who are content to rely on paper records submitted by fishing companies as proof of compliance.

Thai labor law makes it difficult for migrant workers to assert their rights. Fishers’ fear of retaliation and abuse by boat captains and vessel owners is a major factor, but Thailand also restricts the rights of migrant workers to organize into labor unions to take collective action. Under the Labour Relations Act of 1975, any person who does not have Thai nationality is legally prohibited from establishing a union or serving as union leader.

Human Rights Watch’s recommendations to the Thai government, EU, US, and others can be found here.

“No one should be fooled by regulations that look good on paper but are not properly enforced,” Adams said. “The EU and US urgently need to increase pressure on Thailand to protect the rights, health, and safety of fishers.”


Selected Testimony From Fishers

“I didn’t know what was going on when I arrived. They just put me in a lockup, and it was only when the boat came in that I realized that was where I’d have to work. I went to do my pink card application on the 4th, and on the 5th I was out on the boat.”

–Burmese trafficking survivor, Bang Rin, Ranong province, March 2016

“If I want to quit working here I need to request permission from the employer. Some employers allow us to leave, but some will claim we must pay off debts first. For example, if I can pay 25,000 baht [US$762] to an employer … he may allow me to leave, but if he isn’t satisfied … I would have to pay whatever he demanded.”
–Thet Phyo Lin, Burmese fisher, Mueang Pattani, Pattani province, August 2016

“You can’t leave because if you leave you won’t get paid, and if you want to leave at the end it’s only if they let you. Unless you leave without your money and your [pink] card, you have to obtain their permission.”
–Bien Vorn, Cambodian fisher, Mueang Rayong, Rayong province, November 2016

“My pink card is with my employer. [He keeps it] because some of us run away without having paid off our debts yet. Some employers think that we will lose [the cards] or run away from them.”
–Veseth San, Cambodian fisher, Mueang Rayong, Rayong province, November 2016

“[The Thai officials] come maybe 10 at a time in a vehicle – men and women. They have us line up, show our pink cards, call out our names, we raise our hands, they’re gone.”
–Tong Seng, Cambodian fisher, Mueang Rayong, Rayong province, November 2016

We don’t have time for actual rest. For example, we’ll depart at 6 a.m. from the port and then deploy the nets to catch the fish, and after awhile we haul up the load. We’ll do that routinely until late at night, depending on the amount of fish we catch. So it’s already the morning of the next day by the time we get back to port. However, we don’t have a chance to rest because then we have to start unloading all the fish.”
–Sai Tun Aung Lwin, Burmese fisher, Ratsada, Phuket province, March 2016

“It was torture. One time I was so tired I fell off the boat, but they pulled me back on board.”
–Zin Min Thet, Burmese trafficking survivor, Bang Rin, Ranong province, March 2016

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BONANZA! THAI POSSE HUNTS DOWN BRIT FUGITIVE FROM THE ‘PONDEROSA’

February 5, 2018, 8:24 pm
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Hoss won't be happy either*
Some Brits have all the luck.

Poor old Londoner Damon Wait has been caught again.

And its happened on the day The Sun in London posed the question:

 ‘Will Thailand be the next country to bore of boozy Brits?’ 

Damon, who was caught last year with a bag of ‘China white’ heroin and a massive stash of Kamagra and Viagra, or as the Pattaya Mail put it ‘20 boxes of sexual-performance medication’, allegedly awaiting a booze and drugs fueled ‘sex party’, has now been nicked again.

Seems like a special (Santiban-Transnational Crime) posse of police was on the trail of Wait, tracking him north to Chiang Mai and then south a bit to Nakhon Sawan.  



Wait, who in the British press was described as a ‘horse breeder’ but in the Thai press as the manager of the Sports Bar at the ‘Ponderosa’,  a resort situated on ‘The Dark Side’, was nicked last night in Nakhon Sawn's ‘Bonito Chinos’ hotel – Spanish for beautiful Chinese. Such irony.



Seems like Damon is not the ‘tourist businessman' he was described by the ‘Sun’ and ‘Mirror’, who were, of course, just regurgitating local reports and adding a bit of topspin. (We Brits are worried about misfortunes happening to our tourists).


'I'm not going to the police station' said Damon

The ‘Ponderosa’ is a well-known ‘Hell’s Angels’ hang-out. I doubt an ordinary tourist would last long in charge there. The ‘Dark Side’ is an area to the east of Pattaya occupied by many Brits of a colourful background.




Funnily enough Damon Wait,42, yesterday checked into the Bonito Chinos Hotel in Nakhon Sawan with a guy called Simon Hornby and booked three rooms for one night. 

Hornby from NSW, say police, is a fully jacketed member of the Aussie ‘Hell’s Angels’, who seem to be giving Thailand such a head-ache now.

However, Simon was ' clean'.

The nine thousand and fifty-four-pound question is how on earth did Damon Wait get bail in the first place? 

Well, the raid last year was conducted by Pattaya (Banglamuang) Police, District Officials, and the Army.  

And 9504 is 400,000 Thai baht which is the answer - what it cost Damon Wait in ‘bail’.





It's rare that a Brit caught with Class 1 gets bail. One who did, Aussie-Brit Lisa Smith was put on Interpol's Most Wanted list. But then her bail was AUS$74,000.   

Cheap? I don’t suppose that Wait, having coughed up, expected another posse of the Thai police to be on his tail.


Hornby and Wait
Now I am wondering what Pattaya (Banglamuang) Police, district officials and the army are doing with those 20 boxes of sexual performance medicine. 

The Army was there on the original Ponderosa raid, of course, to see everything was done according to the laws, which the junta leader/Prime Minister adds to on a seemingly daily basis. 

I’m guessing Hoss Cartwright will be turning in his grave.

* References to Hoss Cartwright and Bonanza will be lost on younger readers

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THAIVISA.COM LAWYER TOOK EXPATS FOR MILLIONS

February 6, 2018, 11:52 am
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Need a lawyer in Thailand? Here’s where not to look.

SOMSAK CHOKAPA

Well, you’re now fed up with foreign crooks in Thailand. One has taken you for a couple of million baht and you have had a confrontation with him and he’s not giving it back. So, you have called him a crook online to warn others.  He’s come back and is now suing you for criminal libel under the Computer Crimes Act.

Problem is he’s the rich guy as he’s got all your money. But if you don’t fight you’ve lost everything. He’ll get up in court wearing a smart suit and tie, tell the court how his life has been ruined, that he gives to charity, and now even his children are being called names at school. 

So, you need a lawyer? Here’s what not to do.  Don’t Google ‘Honest Lawyer Thailand’. Don’t check the Ads in the Bangkok Post.  And for heaven’s sake do not assume your ‘Embassy list’ lawyer is any way filled with ‘Honest Johns’, and don’t get one from ThaiVisa.com. 


ThaiVisa.com by the way for those unfamiliar is the largest expat patronised English language website in Thailand. It’s in there for the money. 

Finally, do not assume that because a lawyer speaks English and talks the talk, that he can walk the walk and is in any way honest. Assume that and he will walk off with your cash. He may have learned the language to be dishonest. Foreigners can be charged several times the fees offered to Thais.

Probably the most honest Thai lawyer I know told me: 


“I did not want to practice law after a short while. Too money obstructions to justice.”  (sic)

He is now a senior civil servant and separately an authority on organized crime. 

Warnings given. Now to the point. The latest lawyer to walk off with a client’s funds is none other than Somsak Chokapa, exposed on this site for helping boiler room fraudsters set up companies in Thailand through which they could launder the millions from their frauds on foreigners.


Somsak was ThaiVisa.com’s legal adviser to expats. Yes, I know this is hard to believe but ThaiVisa has yet to qualify as a responsible media organization and there are a lot of advertisers who should not be there. 

In fact, Somsak has been struck off the law list once (a rarity in Thailand) but was re-instated on appeal. 

He was on the British Embassy’s legal list, but his firm Siam Inter-Laws was removed years ago after, but not necessarily as a result of appearing on this site. 

He remains on the U.S. Embassy list which appears to have been put together by some very shoddy researchers to this day – even though, when I last checked all Somsak’s law officers were closed (not answering phones) and his website had been removed from the net. (He is still on LinkedIn and other sites).

Somsak took a U.S citizen I shall call PB for a total of 4.5 million baht. 

The citizen had gone to him for help in setting up a company and having done that Somsak asked him for a loan as he had a great business opportunity.  The American provided the cash.

“I got contracts and thought everything would be fine because I had signed and sealed loan contracts. “Somsak said he had great business opportunities ahead and needed the money for development and new offices.  Somsak never made any monthly payment as specified in contracts.   
"He said he would settle cases (which would bring in all the cash) soon and then pay me. But then he said sorry the cases were under appeal. He was always postponing and postponing and always saying he is a lawyer and would never cheat me.  What a sucker I was.  I have attached the contracts as proof to the loans.  I just want word to go out so no one else will get suckered.”

PB sent me the contracts and they are specific and straightforward loan contracts. So frustrated and convinced Somsak had no intention of paying PB hired another lawyer to take the matter to court. 




In court, said PB:


"Somsak claimed he had no income and could not get in touch with me, as he didn't have my phone number or address.  Somsak lied, but the judge found him not guilty."

On later checking the judgement PB found out that the judge did not even mention his ‘loan agreements’.  PB ruled the judge had entered a ‘business relationship’ with Somsak. In effect he ruled that PB had taken a gamble and lost.  Yet, there was no documentary evidence of a business relationship.


“My lawyer asked why was I not invited to end of year mandatory company meetings if I was involved in a business with Somsak?  Somsak answered he mailed out a letter of invite.  My lawyer asked if I was ever invited to any company meetings?  Somsak answered he lost my phone number and couldn't reach me.”

PB has been trying to get another lawyer to take the case and subpoena Chokapa’s private account as he had heard from another disgruntled client who had also lost a lot of money to Chokapa that he too had been advised to pay Chokapa into his private account.  He has been unsuccessful.

And even an honest lawyer I recommended described the task of a foreigner prosecuting a lawyer in a Thai court as rather challenging.

So, there you have it. Thai lawyers will defraud you. Your chances of winning are slim and there is a very good reason why Thailand has severe laws, equitable to lese majeste, for questioning the integrity of one of its judges.

Somsak and Siam Inter-laws remain on the website of the U.S. Embassy under ‘Citizen Services’.



LINKS

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2014/08/sex-thaivisacom-unanswered-questions.html

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2015/03/thai-visa-in-dock.html



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THE EVERYDAY SOUND OF A THAI COURT ROOM - AS THE CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST

February 6, 2018, 2:16 pm
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Every time that I read that migrant workers in Thailand are being prosecuted for stealing their time cards, by a Thai chicken processing company accused of labour abuse I can't help giggling.

(Pause)

How is the court going to assess the value of the time cards  -50 satang or the millions the company will have to pay up for additional charges of labour abuse?

These are beam me up moments which make me wonder whether 'Idiocracy' is a work of fact or fiction.

Thailand's ridiculous defamation cases continue. Last year it was reported that there were 50,000 in the system by bullies wanting to take advantage of the fact that truth alone is no defence and they can get their revenge merely by taking the alleged defamers to courts, which do not award costs if the defamers win!

The case brought by Thammakaset Co. Ltd against 14 Myanmar migrant workers begins tomorrow. Here follows the Finnwatch Press release. Thammakaset are also suing Andy Hall but he flew the coup some time ago. 

The accused - That's Andy Hall peering on tip toe from the back row


PRESS RELEASE - FINNWATCH
6th February 2018


Criminal defamation trial against 14 migrant workers who reported abuse begins in Thailand

Thai authorities must take decisive action to protect freedom of speech and migrant worker rights, says Finnwatch as trial against 14 migrant workers from Myanmar on criminal defamation charges begins in Bangkok on 7th February 2018. If found guilty, the workers could face up to 1.5 years in prison each and fines up to 30 000 baht (760 EUR).

“In this case, migrant workers are put on trial because the abuse they suffered was made public. It is simply wrong and points to serious problems in Thailand’s defamation laws,” said Sonja Vartiala, executive director of Finnwatch.

The case against the 14 migrant workers, which also includes an additional criminal charge of giving false information to public officials, was filed by their previous employer Thammakaset Co Ltd in October 2016. In July 2016, the workers had filed a complaint to the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT) alleging serious labour rights violations and forced labour at Thammakaset chicken farm after failed negotiations with Thammakaset.

According to the workers’ complaint, made public by the Migrant Worker Rights Network (MWRN), they had been forced to work up to 20 hours per day without a day off during 40 or more days. The company also paid the workers less than the minimum wage, provided no overtime compensation, restricted workers freedom of movement and confiscated their identity documents.

The NHRCT issued a contentious report on the case which confirmed illegally low wages and unpaid overtime but rejected allegations of human trafficking as defined under Thai law – even though the workers had made no such allegation in the first place. 

In August 2016, local labour enforcement authorities ordered Thammakaset to pay the workers compensation of 1.7 million baht (43 270 EUR). However, the workers are yet to receive any of this compensation as the company continues to appeal the order through courts, with a final Supreme Court ruling expected during 2018.

Thammakaset also accuses two of the 14 workers of stealing their time cards which the workers had taken to show to the authorities as evidence of excessive working hours. Although the public prosecutor has already decided that the theft case had no merit to proceed to a trial, the company has initiated private criminal prosecution on the case. In addition to the two migrant workers, a Thai staff member of the MWRN is also among the accused.

On 19th February 2018, a court will consider the case during a hearing. The case involves multiple charges, each with a maximum penalty of up to 5 years in prison and/or 10 000 baht fine (250 EUR) if convicted.

Thammakaset is also pursuing a separate criminal defamation and computer crimes charge against a British migrant workers’ rights defender and a former MWRN international advisor Andy Hall for his postings in social media about the alleged labour abuse at Thammakaset chicken farm. The charges against Andy Hall carry a maximum penalty of 7 years in prison and fines up to 300 000 baht (7 640 EUR). In September 2016, Andy Hall received a suspended sentence in a similar case, filed against him by another Thai company Natural Fruit Co Ltd.

In January 2017, the Thai government set up a committee under the Ministry of Justice to draft a national action plan on the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The three pillars of the Guiding Principles are the State duty to protect human rights, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights and access to effective remedy for victims of corporate abuse. The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights will conduct an official mission to the country in March 2018.

“With more and more of these cases coming to courts, the Thai authorities’ claims that they will make sure that companies in Thailand uphold human rights and protections sound increasingly hollow,” said Sonja Vartiala. “If they are serious about this, they must de-criminalise defamation and protect whistle-blowers without further delay.”
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NIELS COLOV'S RACE AGAINST TIME

February 21, 2018, 10:05 am
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REIGN OF PATTAYA'S CHIEF 'FOREIGN COP' AND 'MEDIA TYCOON'DRAWS TO AN END

With his media empire collapsing about him Niels Colov, the former Copenhagen pimp, who rose to the giddy heights of a newspaper tycoon in Pattaya and chief of the local police foreign volunteers, is making one last desperate bid for survival.



With the Pattaya People Media Group unable to pay its printing bill for its newspaper and broadcast fees for its TV programmes on Sophon Cable and now running debts totaling over 13 million-baht (US$412,620.00) Colov is now hoping to save himself by launching a new property scam on the island of Koh Kut (aka Koh Kood).

It's a race against time.




If it works, he believes he’ll get a lot more than the half a million or so dollars he needs, and he’s been touting the project around the healthy and wealthy.

Colov has set up a company, he says, called The Paradise Residence Koh Kut Co. Ltd. to buy beachside property on Koh Kut, to buy land and build a resort, and he predicts the revenue from sales to be US$8.3 million by selling the units on 30-year-lease to (naive*) foreigners.  (*my comment)

The costs of purchase of the land, and construction to completion, he estimates at US$5 million and all investors need to put up is US$3 million. And for that they get 45-50% of the company – and presumably that $8.3 million. But let's not presume too much here.


What is Colov bringing to the table?


 “On our side we have a substantial amount of already purchased construction materials that will be our investment along with a deep know how of the island, Thai law, and Thai procedures. I have lived in Thailand for 35 years and have excellent connections and relations with high ranking Thai people, and I believe that will be of importance to the success of this project.”

Does anyone see any snag to this deal?


Niels Colov is bringing nothing to the table. Unfortunately, his contacts with high ranking Thai people have now all but been demolished. 

While he once had comfortable relationships with the various Chiefs of Police and the long-term Mayor Ittiphol Khunpleum, there are new boys on the block and a new government in power. 

And while officials may be equally or even more greedy, they have not included this Danish chancer in their plans. 

Colov, recently married a massage lady and his venture into the massage business with ‘Darling Massage’ in Pattaya resulted in a police raid Bt500,000 in fines and a closure order, which may indicate his relationship with local police.

He also went into the construction business, borrowing cash from the Siam Commercial Bank, on the property occupied by the Pattaya People Media Group,  to set up a construction company which went bust.

If the construction materials, which Colov says he has, are those left over from his collapsed construction business he’ll probably need to explain how on earth he is going to get them to Koh Kut (Kood). 

The cat is out of the bag on Thailand’s ’30-year-leases’, which property sharks have been selling with promised automatic extensions of lease up to 90 years built into the asking price. Those promises are without any legal foundation.

Nobody in their right mind, or who had conducted the right research, would buy. Too many people have been swindled in these deals on Koh Samui and other Thai paradise islands.

If  Colov has local officials involved they will be on 'his side' not that of his investor(s).

The beauty of the deal is that as we know Thai police, do not, as a rule, pursue cases of foreigners defrauding other foreigners. If or when this deal goes wrong and the foreigner wants his money back then he will have to join the queue. But, in any case by the time the litigation has finished Colov will have along ago attempted to brandish his papal blessing at the pearly gates.




The Rise and Fall of Niels Storm Martens Colov


Niels Martens Storm Colov had an exciting life in the streets near Copenhagen's main bahnhof (railway station). In an area known as Vesterbro he started off much like Soho touts in the 60s ushering punters into 'live sex shows' and graduated into running his own 'girls'.  Soon he was doing well and had a nice apartment with tasteful white leather furniture.


And when the day's work was over he could join his pals for a Tuborg in the local 'kro'. He had made it in the underworld and soon he was producing films - the 'artful' stuff.


with fellow artists down at the local 'kro'.

But then he had a brush with the law. And found himself in jail on a series of charges from pimping to coercion (forcing some woman to do something against her own will) robbery and even vandalism.

In prison, Niels saw the light. Along with many old lags he began travelling to Thailand, where in the pristine paradise of Pattaya he was converted to Buddhism.  And he fell in love with the hospitable and friendly locals and a farmer's daughter.


Niels and Laddawan courtin' in Ubon


His future wife was Laddawan Yingyong, a shy classical dancer at 'Baby a Go Go' from Ubon Ratchathani. They married, had two children and everything was going right.  And he proudly strutted around town where he was known as 'Mr Hamburger Denmark' and rubbing shoulders with other Danes such as Bjarne 'Guld' Larsen.


He ran a chain of hamburger and (Danish polser) carts and his rivals simply disappeared and their carts fell apart, due to the succulent taste of Colov's products.  But he himself had given become a vegetarian and banished Tuborg to the bin.

So miraculous was his conversion that the good foreign citizens of Pattaya elected him chairman of the Rotary Club. 

He then started a newspaper business the Pattaya People Media Group - and such was the product that advertisers found they simply had to advertise with him to flourish in the city.



And then Thai Police, recognising Niels' leadership qualities and moral fibre, made him the boss of all foreign police volunteers.

In honour of his new rank, Danish celebrities, who had also been converted in Denmark's truly groundbreaking prison rehab system,  welcomed him into their homes in Scandinavia and even visited him in Pattaya.




They included such figures as Lone Fristrup Jensen (above left) and Leon Owild (second from left). Lone too had made the transition from former arsonist and human and drugs trafficker,  and Leon Owild too had seen the light and now was teaching young offenders to 'Say No!' to drugs.


The contagion was spreading. Soon bank robbers were also seeing the light and travelling 7000 miles to Pattaya to hear from Niels'own lips as to how he made the transition. 

But then sadly his marriage took a turn for the worse. 


Even  though she owned it and was billed as the Editor, (It's against the Thai law for foreigners to publish newspapers or for that matter to deal in land and property in Thailand) with a heavy heart he had to cut Laddawan, his 'employee' out of his newspaper business and place an announcement in his own newspaper.






Neverthess, so concerned was he with his now 'ex-wife's' health that he also circulated a picture of her around town so that people could help her.

To add to his heartbreak  Niels Colov then had to put up with the antics of the Jyllands Posten, Denmark's leading farming newspaper, which, relying on police sources, accused Niels of being involved in the heroin trade, citing meetings with his friends in Copenhagen.  

It was an outrageous libel and Niels rightly sued, winning a payout from the newspaper.



Things had come to a low ebb but Niels struggled on. But soon he, never a quitter, picked himself up and was riding high again. 

He met American Drew Noyes 'a lawyer, rifle marksman. skydiver, commodities and property trader and advisor to the Bank of Thailand' who had arrived in town and set up a property business and another newspaper group - the Pattaya Times.



After an initial spat, in which they attacked each others 'cheap' Thai wives and accused each other in their respective newspapers of being fraudsters, they made up like re-united lovers, after all, they had a lot in common. They both wanted to help people.

When Drew Noyes organised a legal seminar for local judges in Pattaya Niels was there to lend a hand




Through his own graft he was soon mixing with the rich and famous again. And both Colov and Niels were glowing from the excellent reviews in the local press.

They exchanged notes on how to help foreign investors in Pattaya,
buy property, marry or divorce their Thai wives and import Filipino girlfriends.

In fact, they wanted to help every foreigner get by in the family resort defending the city fiercely against ugly foreign press reports which portrayed Pattaya as a 21st century |Sodom and Gomorrah.

Soon, the two foreigners were being invited to City Hall to help Thais run their fine city.





And both were invited to the home of the local dignitary and ruler Somchai Khunpleum, aka known as Kanman Poh, who had forsaken the comfort of prison for 25 years on murder and corruption charges, making generous donations for the good of his country.




The accolades were coming in furiously, mostly published in the Pattaya Times and Pattaya People and people were able to read that Niels was waging a war on criminals in Pattaya and that Drew had secretly been 14 years service to the King of Thailand and had been appointed 'International Adviser' to Pattaya's Mayor. 



Together with a few police chiefs and his new found friend, Drew Noyes he was invited to be a Knight of Rizal, a highly prestigious Filipino award named after a guy called Jose Rizal.




The membership ceremony involved being blinded and walking around in circles hand on the shoulder of the next man and even though people questioned why the Mayor of Pattaya and Police Chief should also join it was a good all-round party and Niels and Drew could now rightly be addressed 'Sir' other than by their Filipina employees.

Honour followed honour.  Soon the United Nations wanted to honour Niels and sent an emissary from Krakow to Bangkok to bestow a rare United Nations award on him.


Colov gets the UNESCO Cross from Mathias Kunze and wears it

The UNESCO Cross award to Niels Colov, which he is seen wearing above, was for his contribution to '‘outstanding public, scientific, and cultural engagement for human life and education’.

The UNESCO |Cross was so rare that even the United Nations office in Bangkok had not heard of it and could not find it in their system and at the time they were rushing officials down to Pattaya to catch a glimpse.

Sadly Colov lost his friend Noyes, after Noyes was convicted and sentenced to a jail term for an extortion. Niels had predicted that Noyes would get off but may have underestimated a clear conspiracy against Noyes orchestrated by the gutter-press and a former Murdoch journalist, who was jealous of the two men's success.




Nevertheless, after seeing Noyes pay himself out or prison and back to North Carolina, from funds raised out of public gratitude, Niels soon found himself being visited by foreign dignitaries again.



Notable amongst them was Brian Sandberg, who, taking a leaf out of Neil's book had totally reformed from being one of the most
violent members of the Danish 'Bandidos' motorcycle gang to a children's author and had come to Pattaya to thank Neils and his new wife in person.

Unfortunately. between 2015 and 2018 his newspaper business in Pattaya slumped. Unable to pay his printing bill, or pay for airtime for Pattaya People TV on Sophon Cable and unable to pay back loans to the Siam Commercial Bank, and getting his last cash blown in a failed massage parlour Niels was forced to become a 'normal Pattaya farang' to pay for his life in the sun.   He became a property developer.

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BRITISH PARLIAMENT TO DEBATE TOURIST DEATHS IN THAILAND

February 27, 2018, 7:22 am
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PRIME MINISTER TO RECEIVE PETITION

The House of Commons will discuss the safety of British tourists in Thailand in an adjournment debate set for this Wednesday following a motion made by M.P. Hannah Bardell.


This follows a campaign and petition on Change.Org by Reigate mother Pat Harrington whose son was killed in a ‘motorcycle’ on Koh Tao and follows complaints from a range of parents who have had their offspring die in Koh Tao and in the Samui Archipelago of Thailand.



Many have been highly critical of the Royal Thai Police.



Thai junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha ridiculed in a Stephf cartoon


The petition has gathered over 14,300 signatures and Mrs. Harrington will be presenting the petition to Prime Minister Theresa May on March 6th.  


Ben Harrington with friends on holiday in Thailand

The visit must be overseen by Scotland Yard’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command so there can be no placards, funny costumes etc. 


Somyot shaking hands with 'tourists' in Nana Plaza, Bangkok's busiest sex tourism spot, the lease of which is owned
by British boiler room fraudsters

Somyot Poompanmoung was Thailand’s police chief under the military junta when Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were brutally murdered on Sairee Beach, Koh Tao. Their skulls were smashed with a hoe and Hannah was also brutally raped.


Somyot, it has now been revealed, had borrowed the equivalent of some US$9million, from Kamphol Veerathepsuporn, the Chinese-Thai owner of Victoria’s Secret massage parlour (for massage parlour read brothel) at the peak of the murder hunt.  This is pretty much the equivalent of borrowing money from the mafia.



Khampol has since fled. He stands accused of people trafficking, exploiting minors etc. Many of the women working at Victoria’s Secret had been trafficked from Burma and Laos.


Poompanmoung denied knowing what business his friend Khampol was in, and if that is a lie then how much truth was he telling during the Koh Tao investigation in which he publicly cleared the Toovichien mafia family, which runs the island.


Re-enacting the crime for Thai police. Wai Phyo and Zaw Lin


Two young Burmese Wai Phyo and Zaw Lin have since been convicted and sentenced to death and at the time Somyot Poompanmoung congratulated the Thai police and their methodical investigative work and compared Thai police to British police. ‘We read the same books,’ he said.


That raised a few titters. But the conviction of the two Burmese did not. Most people in Thailand, believe the two are innocent and they are merely the traditional scapegoats.



Because the initial Thai investigation was quite laughable and followed the usual pattern of pulling in the usual foreign (tourist) suspects and then the secondary foreign (Burmese) suspects, the then British Prime Minister David Cameron sent a team from Scotland Yard and Norwich Police to investigate.




Unfortunately, though they sent a scenes-of-crime expert they did not send a forensic DNA expert, probably (a) because these come from the Home Office (b) Scotland Yard had no powers to investigate in Thailand anyway.  




The British team were in Thailand for over a month and did not even bring their own interpreter.  That was supplied by the Royal Thai Police.  At this stage, outsiders could rightly view the trip as merely a political exercise. 


Subsequent admission in the High Court by lawyers for Scotland Yard appear to have proved this.


Even if they had the evidence critical of the Thai police, which I doubt they did, they could not have made this public knowledge.


Why?  According to Anya Proops (resisting an application by the defence counsel for the two young Burmese to see the Scotland Yard report) to release it the ‘Chilling Effect’ would have a ‘substantial and adverse effect on law enforcement, fulfillment of public policy and the UK's security objectives’.


That would mean of course ‘a breakdown in co-operation between the law enforcement authorities of Thailand and the United Kingdom.’


‘Public interest, must trump private interest,' argued Ms Proops – even though, as she admitted, the private interest was the lives of the two Burmese.


Justice Green ruled in favour of Scotland Yard, but with ‘considerable unease’.


He said, and it’s worth repeating:


“I cannot ignore the fact that this is a death penalty case conducted with the accused arguing with their eyes closed.’.
And then he posed a theoretical case. 
“A foreign prosecutor fails to disclose to a defendant a key piece of evidence of great value to the defendant in a criminal case.  This item is however recorded in an MPS report and amounts to personal data.   
The report explains that there is compelling evidence that the foreign forensic scientists employed by the police abroad have mixed up DNA samples.  It also records that the prosecution are nonetheless seeking to rely in court upon the wrong DNA evidence to inculpate the accused. 
This entry might be pivotal to the defence and might quite literally represent a matter of life or death.  In those circumstances does the Court sacrifice the accused for the wider principle of comity and trust between authorities? Ms. Proops for the MPS submitted that such was the power and force of the public interest objectives the MPS advanced that even in such extreme circumstances the public interest would still trump the private interest. 
“Does the court sacrifice the accused for the wider principle of comity and trust between authorities? 
“I feel considerable unease. I sit a long way from the seat of the trial and do not have a true hands-on feeling for the way evidence has been tendered by the prosecution or the main lines of defence.”
Justice Green’s hypothetical case turned out to be chillingly real. During the trial of the two Burmese it was revealed that the DNA on the hoes did not belong to the suspects, but other males, there was loss of original DNA samples, a failure by police to check CCTV on people leaving the island, and credible allegations of torture of the suspects and other Burmese. 

The list just went on and on with the final revelation that not even the police lab was up to certified standards. Foreign DNA experts asked to comment on the evidence were dumbfounded.


It turns out that Scotland Yard need not have worried too much about their relationship with the Thai Police and Somyot, whose net worth is currently about US$11 million. 

In a recent television interview he described his police work as a side-line. His real work was playing the stock-market.

Somyot is now the President of the Football Association of Thailand. Here is he with FIFA President Gianni Infantino.


The last President Worawi Makudi had according to Lord Triesman in Parliament demanded the TV rights to a friendly between England and the Thai national team in return for voting for England to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup.


In October 2016 Makudi was banned by the FIFA Ethics Committee for five years and fined 10,000 Swiss Francs for forgery and falsification.


In this picture Somyot is wearing the colour of Leicester City Football Club sponsored by King Power.


King Power is currently charged in Thailand with a £327million fraud, defrauding the Thai government by bribing tax officials and evading tax on its duty free outlets.


Have FIFA scored another own goal. You can’t make it up.


Footnote:
I also signed Pat Harrington’s petition. Not because I know the circumstances of her son’s death, but having covered all the high profile British deaths in Thailand between 1990 and 2015, I would like to see wider discussion of the issue. Certainly, a lot of lies have been told from the Thai police side.
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THAILAND'S VERY OWN GREEK MAGNATE IN THE PROPERTY (FRAUD) BUSINESS

March 19, 2018, 9:01 am
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IT'S AS EASY AS ALPHA BETA GAMMA DELTA

TIMEO GRECI ET DON FERENTES

As the career of Niels Colov, a former career criminal turned newspaper publisher and police chief in Pattaya, Thailand across the Gulf in the royal resort of Hua Him wavers it seems that the life-style of fellow publisher Greek George Mastronikolis is also hitting a few bumps.


I have been receiving posts about gorgeous George for nigh on ten years. 

Agence France Presse even did a report on him, unusual for a wire service, in relation to property frauds way back in 2008.  The problem with the posts is that the authors have always asked for anonymity.


Colov
George Mastronikolis, Niels Colov, and, if readers can remember, Drew Noyes of the Pattaya Times, all started newspapers, and all set about contacting local police and officials, flashing their smiles, not a little cash, and their desire to help Thailand not from the bottom of their loving hearts, as they claimed, but for the benefit of their wallets.

Thereafter, all set about on a course of giving Thailand the worse reputation possible.





We had Niels Colov, publisher of the Pattaya People, being appointed Chief of the Pattaya Police Foreign Volunteers, and Noyes, a fake lawyer, publisher of the Pattaya Times, and now convicted extortionist, running a ‘legal seminar’ with the judges of the eastern region courts.

And Mastronikolis, well he runs Hua Hin Today newspaper, and this is a list of guests who attended a party to lure Chinese investors to the resort.

Ms. Nuwanna Anantakitpaisarn, Vice Governor of Prachuab Kirikhan, Pol. Maj. Gen. Tanet Soontornsuk, Commander of Prachuab Kirikhan Provincial Police, Mr. Montri Shoupu, Deputy Mayor of Hua Hin, Pol. Col. Damrongsak Thongngarmtrakul, Superintendent of Hua Hin Police, Pol. Col. Pansak Kadee, Superintendent of Royal Thai Police Immigration of Prachuab Kirikhan and Ms. Vanida  Arunothai, Chief of Prachuab Kirikhan Commercial Office, Mr. Boonlert Boonchuay, Deputy of Provincial Administrative Organization, Mr. Kriengkrai Kraitong, Prachuab Kirikhan Mayor, Mrs. Pattama Kraitong (Wife of Mr. Kriengkrai), Mr. Somporn Yasotorn, Deputy Mayor of Prachuab Kirikhan, Pol. Col. Arkane Daengdomyut, Superintendent of Prachuab Kirikhan Police, Pol. Lt. Col. Sathabhorn Sanguansuk, Inspector of Tourist Police Station 7 Sub-Division 2 Tourist Police Division, Pol. Lt. Col. Veerawat Kruesombat, (with Pol. Col. Pansak Kadee), Pol. Lt. Col. Suchart Saengnil (with Pol. Col. Pansak Kadee), Pol. Maj. Gen. Noi Wannaphaiboon, Editor of Hua Hin Today and Mr. Phaiboon from local Real Estate firm.



Look who is editor of Hua Hin Today. Police Major General Noi Wannaphaiboon, is not of course. Its just an honorary title. His English is not THAT good.




Hua Hin truly welcomes Greeks bearing gifts.

In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find if George owns anything. He has been sued in Bangkok and Prachuap Khiri Khan and has judgments against him totaling between 30-40 million baht involving properties he had, well let’s not mince words here, fraudulently sold to hapless punters from abroad. The victims include Scandinavians, Russians, Brits etc.



Poor old George simply states: ‘I don’t have any money’. And technically that is true. Although he claims to be the owner of the above on ‘LinkedIn’ these are just fronts for his activities.  Everything is in the hands of nominees.  In fact, he should be a millionaire many times over. 

Membership of the Mahasamutr Country Club (535,000 per annum) must be a mere bagatelle. 



Lotus Resort, Black Lotus, Greenscape, Royal Holdings, Royal Property (Thailand), etc., are all names to be avoided.  

He pretends to be the owner of properties. He isn’t. He works on a system of ‘kai fak’.

He says he’ll buy the land to the owner, tells the buyer he owns the land.  

And when they buy and move in they find they have nothing. 

Then they ask how they can get their money back but alas the sugar cane has already entered the elephant's mouth.

George had mastered a scam being perpetrated by resort foreign property dealers all over Thailand. 

It’s a win win situation. Everybody gets paid off in Thailand, and the foreigners must fight for years for court decisions, which, while they may win, are unenforceable.

In fact, in Hua Hin while technically penniless George is regarded by the locals as the foreigner with the ‘Golden Touch’.   

Some even say ‘Khamoy suay’ (beautiful thief). And now a local policeman has invested a considerable amount in one of George’s schemes. 

I don’t think George is stupid enough to cheat the cop. Surely not?
*****************************************************

*One of George’s earlier victims was retired US Marine Donald ‘Biff’ Whiting, who settled in Hua Hin with his partner Dolly Samson, a former Rector of Webster’s University, Hua Hin campus. They had a 5-million-baht case against George, then decided to put their home in the hands of Darren Oxley, of Oxley Homes, Hua Hin.

Then Biff had problems with Darren Oxley, who just happened to be on the run from a drugs trial in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, where he was described as a man not to meddle with.

Biff's car was fire-bombed the day before a court case. If that was not enough Biff was then gunned down outside his home, and paralysed from the neck down.


Oxley
Although Donald had only had contact with Darren Oxley himself, Oxley’s wife and two others were convicted of the attempted murder - but it took years to get to trial and conviction – and there was little confidence that she would stay in jail for long.

 http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2016/04/jail-sentence-confirmed-for-thai-wife.html


*Jason Coghlan, the brother of  Arran Coghlan, ‘The Teflon Don’ who acquired that nickname after police failed to convict him of three murders, was armed by Hua Hin Police after he was employed by Dutch property Developer Dingeman ‘Dinky’ Hendrikse to sort out complaining foreign buyers on his ‘Avalon’ now ‘Khao Noi’ estate in Hua Hin. 

Shooting off in the middle of the night and threatening to personally come around and sort out the foreigners who had come to ‘live the dream’ certainly seemed to work for Jason, a former Double Category Triple 'A' prisoner with a history of violence.

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2016/04/thai-police-armed-british-double.html

http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2010/08/gangland-britain-in-thailand-contd.html


*Keith Burbage, 56, a director of the ‘Stationery Office’, formerly Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, was severely beaten up in Hua Hin after being sold a property of Dingeman Hendrikse and entering a legal dispute. (The house he bought was sold to someone else).  Hendrikse denied any connection. Burbage left to retire in South America. At the time he said: “There is nobody protecting people from the foreign mafia here, least of all the police.”

None of the above were reported in the Hua Hin Today newspaper. I can understand people requesting anonymity.

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19-YEAR OLD TOURIST FLEES THAILAND WITH MUM AFTER THAI RAPE ATTACK

March 25, 2018, 4:09 am
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MUM ISSUES VIDEO WARNING AFTER HER DAUGHTER IS THREATENED

'RAPIST' POSTS 'DOUBLE BED' MESSAGE ON SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY



EVIL MAN OF KRABI 2?


A young Norwegian, who regularly visited Thailand with her mother to volunteer for a small animal charity, says she fled after being raped by a local man after visiting a bar in southern province of Krabi.

Although police later arrested her alleged attacker in Ao Nang, she
Samarkit
fled with her mother and a New York firefighter, she said, after he was quickly released and locals warned them all to get out of town.

The fireman had subsequently been involved in a fracas after the incident after returning to the bar where the incident allegedly happened to confront the rapist.

The alleged rapist, Thiraphat Samarkit, was freed, the family said, despite promises by police ‘100 percent he will be like monkey in a cage’ while they stayed in Thailand to testify.



In a case similar to the 'Evil Man of Krabi' case 6 years earlier in Ao Nang the family does not believe that the Thai authorities treat the rape of foreigners seriously and have put up a video warning on YouTube.


Martine. Sad. She wanted to stay to testify against rapist - but
Thailand gave us no real choice.
The young Norwegian, Martine Borge, aged 19, and her mother Anca Häkestad were both shocked to see him updating his Facebook while allegedly in police custody, showing he was free and driving his motorbike around town.



He even posted a ‘Happy Valentine’ message accompanied by photos of a room, a double bed with heart-shaped cushions, and himself posing with another foreign woman.




The woman in the photograph messaged him to take her picture down. But he did not. 


Contacted in Thailand the woman from Brooklyn, New York said: 

“I’d rather just remove myself totally. The people are not normal. God knows what could happen to me.”
 (More recently he has been posing with other foreign women) 

Anca and Martine said that on February 11th they had spent a day with IHANA (I Help Ao Nang Animals) feeding animals.

In the evening they had gone to the night market in Krabi where they had dinner and drinks and talked about Martine volunteering with Lanta Animal Rescue. 

Returning late they stopped their taxi early to walk the last few hundred yards to their hotel.

They got chatting with New York fireman Tommy Burke and three male British tourists and were invited for a drink. 

Anca declined, she said, because she was tired, but in any case, they had been visiting Ao Nang for many years – making 14 trips, and she felt safe there, and her daughter would be safe in the group. 


Thiraphat posting with American woman in Facebook 'Valentine's Day' message


The mother went home, and the group went into the nearest bar the – the Roots Rock Regga Bar.

Within an hour about 1 am on February 12th Anca Häkestad received a frantic and hysterical call from her daughter saying she had been raped. 

Details later emerged that she had been dancing with the American and Brits and at some point, needed to use the toilet. She asked a barman, who was also moving around the room, where it was, and the barman, Samarkit, offered to show her, leading her downstairs and opening a door. 



But the room had no toilet but a bed, and then Martine claimed she found herself being bundled into the room where she was raped by the barman who was easily able to pull off her lose casual trousers and underwear.

He had pinned her by her upper arms and after he had finished she grabbed her clothes and, dressing on the stairs, fled the bar in a state of shock, pushing over one of the Englishmen in the process.

Seeing the commotion Tommy Burke and the Englishmen followed and were later joined by Martine’s mother, Anca, who Martine had called in distress on the phone, and some Swedish girls. Martine was lying on the ground sobbing.

The police were called after Martine said she had been raped and she was accompanied to the local hospital by local officers, Anca and one of the Britons – the one she had pushed in the rush to get out of the Roots Reggae Rock bar. 

At the hospital, Martine was checked for the DNA of her attacker, which was found, and treated against any possible STDs and the HIV virus, a treatment she is continuing in Norway.


Firefighter Burke meanwhile, fired up with anger, returned to the bar demanding to see the culprit. But he was confronted by a group of Thai men and a scuffle ensued and, after losing his shirt. he decided it was wiser to retreat.

Both Anca and Martine were then visited by both the local police and the Tourist Police. Martine gave two statements and later they were told that the man had been arrested. It was a straightforward case. 

It was just a matter of waiting for the DNA and for Martine to testify at a specially convened court. Bail would be opposed and he would be kept in custody.

Thai Tourist Police even brought them flowers and fruit and encouraged them to enjoy the rest of their stay and not worry.  Both mother and daughter said they felt safe.

But that was soon to change. Their first shock, they said, was to find that they were being filmed in a ‘Family Mart’ by the female singer from the bar and there was a confrontation.

Then back at their hotel they received visits from other members of the bar including the wife of the Thai owner.  Ostensibly they were calling to express their regret, but they would not leave unless they spoke to the daughter. They eventually had had to be forcefully asked to leave.

Then, said Anca, along came a German called Mathias or Matthaus, who was running around investigating the case, because, he said, he was a small shareholder in the bar. But strangely he had information only given by the family to the local police.
Matthias

He had approached the mother, daughter, and Tommy, telling them he was just trying to figure out what happened because the timings Martine had given police of when she was in and out of the bar were all wrong as the police CCTV showed.

(The bar's own CCTV was not working)

Also, he said, staff would testify that Martine was seen kissing the alleged rapist in the bar and then had heard the ‘sounds of good sex’ going on in the room.  

He also mentioned that Martine had pushed a man away and that Tommy had been shirtless when he left the bar suggesting one of the Brits and Tommy might have been involved in some way.


The above incidents were true and convinced the group that police had shown him the CCTV footage but he had a totally false interpretation.
‘You,’ he said to Tommy, ‘You need to wait here police are coming to talk to you and they want to see your friend too, so you’ll need to find him.’

Not surprisingly everyone was shocked and angry, and Tommy Burke said he shouted at the man to leave, which he eventually did in a white Mitsubishi SUV sporting an advertisement for the Roots Rock Reggae bar on the outside.

Both Anca and Martine did not know what they had signed in the police station as police had said they could not bring their Thai friend, who offered to translate and read back their statements to them in English.

Said Anca: 


"It is unforgivable that the rapist had traumatised my daughter and it hurt much worse and it is so unfair to give up fighting for justice but we believed this man (Mathias) was sent by the mafia to watch us and to intimidate us. Although we were not afraid of him we were afraid of who we believed he was working for."


As with most Thai tourist bars in Thailand the Roots Reggae Rock bar the owners have a close relationship with the local police. But the relationship between the police and this bar seemed just as little too close to Martine and Anca.

On making inquiries they said they were told that the bar was ‘mafia owned’. But it was not big mafia. 

Just local mafia, was how they were described to Anca and Martine.  That meant, they were told, that 'for a consideration' police did not interfere with their business. 

The bar is known as a place to buy drugs and smoke in a downstairs room.




Roots Rock Reggae highly recommended on Tripadvisor for its 'weed' - here at 1,300 baht a bag


Said Martine: 

“Soon everybody around us was telling us to ‘get the f… out of Thailand’.  And the mafia was reporting me about giving a false report about the rape. They said that I had wanted to have sex with him.
"But really, I’m 19 years old. No 19 years old girl wants to have sex with a 50 years old man from a bar in Thailand. 
“And I get so sad, mad and upset because the day the rape happened we were asking ourselves if we should go home. But I didn’t want to because I didn’t want that man to go for free after ruining me. And I didn’t want him to have the opportunity to do it again to someone else. 
 “But Thailand and the mafia didn’t give us a choice. We couldn’t have stayed there to make the case complete because we can’t fight the big mafia thing that’s going on down there.”
Anca said she was in love with Thailand and the people until the incident: 


“ I was in shock. This was the last thing I thought would happen to us in Ao Nang. It was horrible to see my daughter lying and shaking on the asphalt, kicking her legs at the same time she was grasping both of her hands at her abdomen, crying for her breath. And the fear in her eyes almost took me away.  
“My child, who just over an hour previously seemed to be the happiest girl in the world, was now in the fetal position on the asphalt completely crushed by sorrow and shock.” 
After that last meeting with Mathias Tommy Burke went back to his hotel and related the story of Mathias/Matthaus to a member of staff. Everybody seemed to know Tommy was involved with the Reggae Bar incident. 


“I told the story quickly and the staff girl says, ‘My father is police, you need to go.’ Very shocked by her answer I keep asking questions. But she just keeps saying 'Get in a cab and book a flight on the way to the airport.'  
‘Don't call the girls, just go!’
I keep saying things like. ‘You can't be serious?’ and ‘You've got to be joking!’  'No!Just Go!’ she said. 
 "After a while of her not changing her story I add money to my phone and call the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok and he says pretty much the same thing. ‘Get out of Thailand’.
 Anca says she received the same advice when she contacted her Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oslo.

After complaining to police, they all moved hotel as they had found out their hotel was owned by the same family group as the bar, and at the new hotel , they said, they were joined by Tommy.
Anca with her husband Ken

Back home her husband Ken booked tickets for Anca, Martine and for Tommy to escort them back to Oslo via Dubai and at 5 am they slipped out of their hotels and took a taxi to Phuket airport and onwards to Bangkok and home.

In Ao Nang a Dutch girl was raped on her 19th birthday. It became known as the ‘Evil Man of Krabi’.

In that case the rapist, a tourist guide called Chumpol Khaonuang, who had a murder conviction as a juvenile aged 17, was not arrested for a month, but then he was also immediately released on bail despite police promises.

In anger, the victim’s Dutch musician father, composed and sang the music video ‘Evil Man of Krabi’ and put it on YouTube after his daughter was raped by an Ao Nang ‘tourist guide’.

Police tried to retaliate by suggesting the young women was a willing partner by accepting a lift home on his motorcycle and holding his hand and they fed information to the Tourism Minister Chumphol Silpa-archa, who made a statement saying it couldn't be rape because the victim dined with the suspect and her boyfriend and the boyfriend left him to it!  

The Thai response was treated with contempt internationally and it became quite clear that she had been beaten by Chumpol as well.

A common view is that Chumpol would have got away with it had it not been for the father’s video which went viral and he was taken back into custody.
February 28 letter from Norwegian consuil to Anca telling them Thai police say 'We have been in contact with the
local police by telephone and they say he is in custody and will be kept there while they are building the case

Since returning to Norway Anca Haakestad has also taken to YouTube. She has been corresponding with the father of the Dutch girl and is considering making a music video. Her current video is titled  'The Darks Side of Ao Nang'.

Anca Häkestad has been in contact with friends in Oslo and Ao Nang, who have provided background on the attacker and have liaised with the Tourist Police, and with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Thai Police have requested through the Norwegian Consulate in Bangkok that Martine returns to Thailand to give evidence.  They point out that the decision to allow bail was a decision of the court not the police. Martine’s departure from Thailand had not been good for the case.

Tony Wattanamalin, the bar owner, has not answered messages.

COMMENT: 

Thai Police have not regained the family’s trust. They want to know what a foreigner with links to the bar was doing with information provided by them to police and why they lied to the Norwegian authorities on 28th February and again in a statement on March 8th claiming that the attacker was in custody.

Over 30 years reporting from Thailand it became clear most foreign women victims of rape chose to flee. Numerous programmes have been sponsored by the United States, British, Australian and different European governments on how to deal with sex crimes. There has been an improvement in how Thai police deal with sex crimes. The queues of male officers to interrogate the victims have gone. Nevertheless a victim is still treated considerably different than in the west.

When term mafia is used in Thailand it can often mean just the rich and influential guys in town. As they have money, they have influence over the police.  Police look up to them and 'wai' them etc. So if they want to sell drugs in their bars police may touch them.   Police, however, will arrest foreigners caught with drugs bought in their bars. And sometimes police seem too well informed.

Rape victims have to pay their own expenses (if they have to fly back from their home countries top give evidence)  but often they can give evidence in special court and then allowed home. In this case a special court had been set up, but by this stage the victim and her family were in fear.

Trials can last for years in Thailand even having been found guilty of such offences as murder, the perpetrators can still get bail to appeal. The exceptions to this have been high profile tourist murder rape cases. The high speed has nothing to justice but much more to do with public image of the country and 'face'.

Some cases which have taken a lot longer include famously Kanman Poh (Somchai Khonpleum) The Godfather of the Eastern Seaboard escaped jail for 25 years after being convicted of murder - and then last year he was granted a Royal Pardon without spending a day behind bars!

And six Thai policemen, who were found guuilty of the murder of a 17-year-old student in a well-known drugs war case in Kalasin, were also then given bail after the death sentence had been pronounced!

In the above case the victim and her family have elected to be identified. |They believe by doing so it will add weight and credibility but more importantly they hope this case will serve as a warning to women visiting Thailand.

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FIRST, THEY COULDN’T TALK – NOW THEY CANNOT BREATHE

March 31, 2018, 12:46 pm
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DISASTER PREVENTION OFFICER IN MAI: ' THESE ALLEGATIONS ARE A FRIGGING DISASTER'

SMOG ROLLS IN OVER GOVERNOR

(warning this contains images which may be regarded as sacrilegious in Thailand)

It seems pilots of the airline Nok Air are having problems finding the runway in the northern town of Mae Hong Son and local citizens in Chiang Mai are having real difficulties breathing. But now disaster prevention officers are tackling the problem.



Naturally. they’re not tackling the notorious northern air pollution, which is in many places well in excess of safety limits set by the World Health Organisation. 

They’re tackling the problem of people talking about it now they can no longer pass off the smog as early morning mists. They last all day.



In a move reminiscent of the time members of the Thaksin Shinawatra government publicly ate a meal of KFC chicken with the message ‘What Bird Flu? Not here there ain’t’ an investigation has been ordered into the publication of a school girl's painted picture of the city centre statue of the ‘Three Kings’ (founder of Chiang Mai) with the kings all wearing smog masks, and its appearance on the Facebook page of the city’s glossy magazine ‘City Life’.



The Provincial Governor of Chiang Mai, Pawin Chamniprasart, the northern voice of the military junta, ordered Sirirpon Nampa head of the city’s Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Agency to investigate. Staff members have been ordered to wake up.


Pawin
Clearly waking from a sopor himself, Pawin commented to the Nation newspaper:


 “It’s sacrilege. It’s a disrespectful act. It seriously hurts the feelings of Chiang Mai residents.”  

What’s more, he added, it could hurt tourism and the image of the city, which has seen the northern Thai capital competing with Dhaka as the world’s worst city for air pollution. 

So, the publisher of City Life, Pim Kemasingki, could face charges of libel under the 2007 Computer Crime Act and face jail of up to 7 years, or sedition under country lese majeste laws and qualify for a 15-year stretch.

Perhaps the schoolgirl will be hanged, drawn and quartered.

I have been talking to people in Chiang Mai, but I can’t reveal their names. They might meet a similar fate. They report that it's not so often you can see Doi Suthep, Thailand’s second highest mountain, which dominates the city.
Not the first time northern Thailand's
 three wise men have donned masks.

Protesters have already had to cancel a rally which they had organized at the city’s Thapae Gate because they had been subjects to threats. 

“Grab your mask and bring your friends and family to come together and have our voices heard. 

We all have the right to breathe. This is a gathering organised by concerned citizens of Chiang Mai with no political agenda but to plead with the authorities to please provide air quality information to the public following WHO standards. 

We will be handing a letter to both the governor and the mayor, though there will be no ceremony at the event itself. It will be a casual gathering and we hope that with the press we invite, our message will be heard by those who need to hear it. BRING A SIGN.”

The government has placed a ban on all meetings of five or more persons for political purposes, but you can still dress up as a Nazi on your school Sports Day.

Of course, this is all ridiculous. 

It’s not the first time these three kings have been depicted wearing smog masks. 

I don’t think many people think that the latest picture, painted by a young student at a local international school, is sacrilegious. 


But, of course, the city fathers will find someone if it suits them. 

A few years ago the Governor of Chiang Mai at the time wrote to me saying that there was no place in Thailand for 'human zoos', that is camps for Burmese long-necked Padaung families which were set up for tourist cash by, in his words, 'unscrupulous businessmen'.

The last I heard there were more than ever. He obviously got straight onto the problem Thai-style.


Here’s the text of the petition to the Governor.
#breathelife
A plea to find solutions to the annual air pollution danger to the people of the north of Thailand. 
To the Honourable Governor of Chiang Mai Province HE Prawin Champrasart 
To the Honourable Mayor of the City of Chiang Mai HE Tassanai Buranupakorn 
To the Honourable President of the Provincial Administrative Organisation HE Boonlert Buranupakorn 

We are the citizens and residents of Thailand and other countries living here in Chiang Mai, who are concerned about the ongoing environmental crisis and health impacts of the haze and the air pollution which is affecting Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand each year. 
We acknowledge the efforts made by the government and independent organisations all working towards solutions, however, given the health issues that are the result of the aforementioned issues, we wish to ask for more urgency in finding solutions so that citizens can protect themselves appropriately from the many health dangers we face due to this problem. 
We therefore ask you, as the governor and mayor of Chiang Mai, to request that the Government of the Kingdom of Thailand to urgently take these three important steps to provide this information. 
1. We humbly request that the Pollution Control Department, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Government adopt the World Health Organisation (WHO) Standard for the identification of dangerous levels of particulate matter for both PM 10 and PM 2.5 and include both readings in every official document published so that this information is widely available to the public. 
2. We humbly request that the Government urgently install, with international assistance if necessary, more monitoring stations in Chiang Mai city and other regional centres and rural centres, to monitor both PM 2.5 and PM 10 levels. 
3. We humbly request that the Government provides accurate information regarding the hazards of haze and air pollution on public health, especially children and the elderly while also educating those on effective dust masks that protect at the level of PM 2.5. 
4. We humbly request that the relevant agencies and authorities measure pollution levels from vehicles in Chiang Mai and publish this information to the public. We also ask that all vehicles have their emission levels measured, and must not exceed that standard level before registration is approved. 
We hope that your excellencies will seriously consider this petition and that our proposal is forwarded to all the relevant agencies, at all levels. 
Thank you for your kind attention. 
The citizens of Chiang Mai

According to the Nation but don't take their word for it. Suck it and see.


“The amount of PM10 dust particles – measuring more than 10 microns in size – hovered at 159 micrograms per cubic metre of air in Chiang Mai’s Muang district yesterday, well above the safe limit.  According to Thailand’s Pollution Control Department, health will be affected if PM10 soars above 120 micrograms per cubic metre of air. By the World Health Organisation’s standards, the amount of PM10 should be much lower for people to be safe."


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SONS OF DANISH 'CELEBRITY ARRESTED IN PATTAYA

April 26, 2018, 1:42 am
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THAI BROTHEL OFFERED FOR SALE IN N.CAROLINA


The recent arrest of the three sons of Niels Storm Martens Colov, the former Copenhagen gangster who rose to the dizzy heights of newspaper publisher and chief of the Foreign Tourist Police Volunteers in the seamy Thai resort of Pattaya, unfortunately cannot be taken in any way as part of a clear up of corruption in the city.
Left - Pong, centre Niels Colov, right Rolf and Bjorn

Bjorn Colov (Thanapong Thanomsom)24, was arrested with his two brothers, Rolf Kittikhun Colov and Pong Colov in The Street pub in Pattaya’s Third Road.  Bjorn had a load 9mm pistol and his brothers tested positive for drugs.

Siamchon News - Bjorn Colov and the gun

The raid was apparently ordered by the local authority and carried out by Pattaya Police after complaints from neighbours about goings on in the pub – owned by the Colovs.

Poor guys. The police described it as a 'big' case. This may be because they have been nicked before. I hope its not because they were also accused of 'vaping'!

The raid can be taken as another sign of the waning influence of their father Niels, who did time in Copenhagen on various criminal charges including pimping and enforcement.

Colov centre with some  good old boys is his Danish gangster days in Vesterbro, Copenhagen


Colov is one of hundreds of people who have re-invented themselves in Thailand. In Denmark it is illegal to mention his previous convictions this is because he has been ‘rehabilitated’ and has not had any convictions in Denmark since. The reason for this of course is because he has been committing offences in Thailand for 30 years not Denmark and had managed to ingratiate himself with the police and the local Mayor.

Colov with godfather 'Kamnan Poh' during the good old days


He now no longer has the cash and, if it has not already, the Pattaya People print version will shortly disappear from the streets. After the arrest of his sons the Thai media described them as the sons of a local ‘celebrity’.

More Colov (right) recently with a couple of well known good old boys


Colov’s former colleague, American Drew Walter Noyes, meanwhile is still trying to run ‘One Stop Services’ by internet from his address in Green Valley Drive, Wilmington, North Carolina.
Noyes FB posting in January

On Facebook #DrewNoyes is still offering for sale (for three years now) his ‘Athena’ Gentleman’s Club in Jomtien – a club which failed to open.  



And he's offering a Thai visa and a work permit to the buyer.
He also is still claiming he has a licence for a 'Gentleman's Club' which of course in Pattaya means brothel.



He describes earlier how he had been ‘called back to America’ failing to tell his readers that he actually fled just before losing his appeal and conviction for extortion at the Pattaya Criminal Court.  

Noyes under arrest

Despite also setting up a newspaper ‘The Pattaya Times’ and fraternising with police and local mayor Noyes could not expect acquittal because one of those he attempted to extort out of 7 million baht was a Thai national.
Noyes with the Mayor of Pattaya Ittiphol Konplume second son of Thai
Godfather Somchai Konplumne (Kanman Poh)

Back in the U.S. he has again created another false C.V. in the very town where in 1996 he was exposed by the local paper 'The Star' - for doing just that, and ripping off a few people in property.

The military junta meanwhile, which has been arresting Russians for cashing in on the ‘nonexistent’ prostitution business for which Pattaya is, err  ‘ not known’, is also shoring up the eastern seaboard to win the polls there in its promised election next year. 
  
Joining them is Sontaya Konplume, a former Minister of Tourism and Sports in the Thaksin Government so loathed by the junta. 

Sontaya’s father is Somchai, aka, Kamnan Poh, Thailand’s most famous mafia godfather of the eastern seaboard, who has been convicted of murder and corruption and not spent a day in prison in 20 years despite a 25-year sentence. 

The Thai mafia, which police deny exist ‘otherwise we would know about it’, is clearly in its ascendency.

As we reported here such was Somchai’s good conduct while not in prison (and regularly hosting parties in his Chonburi home) that the newly crowned Rama X of Thailand has given him a full pardon.  Aaaah.
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GROUNDHOG DAY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA

May 15, 2018, 12:27 pm
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Having been quiet for a couple of weeks taking in the joys of rural England in the rare sunshine I am compelled to comment now on two good television documentaries which I took time out to see.

The first was ‘Myanmar with Simon Reeve’ and the second was Evan Williams’ ‘Myanmar’s Killing Fields’.

Both centred on the plight of the Rohingya. The minority which without doubt has been the subject of genocide, half a million plus of whom have fled across the border to Bangladesh.

Simon Reeve /BBC

Simon Reeve, an excellent story teller, produced a glossy perhaps more ‘even handed’ account, so we caught a colourful glimpse of devout monks collecting their morning alms with the point that the monks were at the centre of Burma’s* fight for democracy, and stressing that most people loved Aung San Suu Gyi.  Nevertheless, he did not shy away from the Aung San Suu Gyi controversy. This was the first of a series on Burma by Simon Reeve


The documentary by Evan Williams, a former colleague and friend when he was ABC’s man in Bangkok, was much more evocative. 

Backed with film taken behind enemy lines it was a harrowing hour-long documentary with gory detail and witness statements of rape, disemboweling of pregnant women, throwing babies on fire, etc.

And it pointed the finger squarely at Aung San Suu Gyi, Burma’s Nobel Peace prize winning heroine, and her blatant lies to the United Nations.

‘There is no history of Muslims in 2000 years of Burma’ read placards carried by ‘Buddhists’ demonstrating against what they refer to as ‘Bangladeshis’.  Funny. I thought Burma was a mish mash of Kingdoms and races brought together by the British; people like the Kachin, Chin, Karen, Arakanese, Mon, Shan etc.

The majority of course were Burmese and they have been slaughtering their ethnic minorities since time immemorial. 

Human Rights Watch’s Phil Robertson when asked what other Embassies were doing about the problem came up with the opinion with, well nothing much really.  They did not want to rock the boat as it might revert the country to the old days. People in Burma had more democracy now. 

Nobody is attacking Aung San Suu Gyi except the odd senator here and there and the United Nations rapporteur and then its only words. Diplomacy has not worked.

Groundhog Day? The plight of Burma’s ethnic minorities was my original fixation, long before organized crime, when I relocated to Asia 30 years ago.  In 1987 I made the film ‘Burma’s Forgotten War’ (BBC2) – a catalogue of rapes, murders, and torture by the Burmese Army on the Karen minority. 
Self (peaked hat) on a front line position with the KNLA in Wangkha (sic) eastern Burma in 1987

A year or so later a made the film ‘Lord of the Golden Triangle’ (ITV/Observer Films) on heroin warlord Khun Sa – aka Chan Shi Fu – allegedly the world’s most wanted man, who later settled happily in Rangoon running a bus company and dining with the Burmese military.
Youthful! With Khun Sa 1988

I interviewed Aung San Suu Gyi in 1988 (She was a lot easier to talk to then apparently) I remember not being enamoured because I wanted her to talk about Burma’s ethnic minorities and she wouldn’t.

Between then and now the Burmese army have continued to murder and torture its ethnic minorities, while the west queues up to do business. 

And, of course, pretty much all the big businesses in Burma are connected to the military. They are still actively slaughtering the Kachin. More recently the British Army have even been training the Burmese Army in how to deal with civil unrest in a manner which won’t get them done for war crimes.
I’m guessing the British Army thought they could get more out of this than they could give.

The worst atrocities of all have been carried out under Aung San Suu Gyi’s tenure.

Its Groundhog Day for me too because in Thailand the corruption is still as bad, although more clandestine, than ever with yet another military government in control plundering the country while inserting clauses in the constitution ruling that they cannot be held to account in the future.  

Mahathir is back in control in Malaysia as he was when I first went there for the executions of Kevin Barlow, Jeffrey Chambers, and Derrick Gregory, for drugs trafficking.

(The bosses continue to remain untouched while insignificant couriers go to the gallows.)

And Cambodia and the Philippines have become absolute basket cases ruled by dictators also lining their pockets and simply demolishing their enemies.

And here in Britain all we seem to worry about is Brexit, and, the weather of course.

In Britain we have UKIP.  But UKIP members have nothing on your devout Burmese Buddhist.

Well done Evan Williams. Still the same old grafter.


*I prefer Burma to Myanmar and, as was pointed out in Episode 1 of Simon Reeve's series, so do many dissidents.
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May 16, 2018, 12:08 pm
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