Fugitive Warrant Issued

Victor Yamato Police reports, International journalists, investigators 23.11.2009 21:30

Foreign mafia on its last days in Pattaya

Fugitive Warrant Issued
Pattaya foreign mafia on its last days

Lance Shaw has a fugitive warrant out for him after failing to appear on one of the charges against him in the gold scam drawing international attention and suspicion that Thailand justice is corrupt . It is a case of the old guard, small mafia of a few foreigners like Shaw with Thai connections who are still able to exert power on some levels to paint a bad picture of the Thai judicial system through acts of corruption and by scamming fellow foreigners here in Pattaya.

This will stop.

“Just a few bad foreigner guys make it look like there is a lot of crime in Pattaya. One or two people can cheat a hundred people so we have one hundred cases,” said Pattaya Chief District Attorney Wattana Swatthong.

Twenty victims from more than a dozen countries are getting help from investigators, police, other victims, journalists and Pattaya foreign residents once close to Mr. Shaw. Recently a video crew and well-known investigative journalist named Aela Callan came to Pattaya and reported on TV in Australia exposing these criminal cases and the handling of them by police. Erika Frye of the Bangkok Post has published two in-depth stories about the gold scam and is in the process of writing another.

Police and private investigators aiding 14 of the alleged victims are now investigating where Mr. Shaw is and who is helping him elude prosecution.

“The dust will settle and those who helped in this crime will be brought to justice,” said one of the Thai investigators.

“Foreigners need to know they can rely on the legal process, not money, when they are victims or accused of crime in Pattaya and I will see to make sure there is transparency and no corruption in the Shaw case or any others as I am sure Pattaya Police Chief Sarayuth will do also. If not, he has a boss,” said the Pattaya Chief District Attorney assigned here six months ago.

“We went to the Pattaya Police Station to file criminal complaints against Lance Shaw while he was in Pattaya almost two years ago after being cheated out of considerable sums, about two million dollars in all. But a man there met us and convinced us to file the charges through a lawyer he knew instead of directly with the police at Soi 9. That caused us two years of wasted time,” said local school teacher Graham Mitchell who lost a considerable amount of money in the internet-based gold investment scheme he saw advertised in the Pattaya Mail newspaper.

Last month a lawyer from PAPPA Co., Ltd. visited the Pattaya Chief of Police with victims Graham Mitchell and Alan Burnside. Phillip Shield’s case was filed by the Pattaya Police with the Prosecution (DA) and Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Burnside both had their cases revived and will be filed by the police to the prosecutors soon.

Three weeks ago Graham Mitchell and the lawyer from PAPPA Co., Ltd. went to see the District Chief Prosecutor Mr. Wattana Swatthong who knew nothing about the case for good reason: the case had not been sent to his office by the police yet.

It has been almost two years since their cases were filed. The DA said the case should be sent to him after about two months usually. Now the cases are moving through the system without interruption.

Phillip Shields writes,”Lance Frederick Shaw always says in his e-mail that he is paying the police and our lawyers which were confirmed by the charge staying in the police station for 18 months.”
Mr. Shaw was arrested on a police warrant from a separate charge filed by Mr. Phillip Shields for the same scam and was sent to jail to await bail. A woman posted one million baht bail for the non-violent crime. However, Mr. Mitchell has filed a charge of death threats which if it had cleared bail would have been extremely unlikely.

According to the Pattaya Municipal Court, Mr. Shaw was bailed out on October 15. He missed his court appointment one week later on October 22. The court issued an arrest warrant on October 26. The court has reported the revocation of Mr. Shaw’s bail and fugitive status to the Pattaya Immigration and says he will not be able to leave the country. They know he has two passports. They have revoked his bail and will go after the lady who posted the bail. They have filed a fugitive arrest warrant out for him for jumping bail. The warrant is now in effect and making its way around to Interpol and other countries Shaw is known to frequent. Alerts are also out around Thailand.
The main problem here is the Pattaya Police are extremely busy with more dangerous crimes to solve. There are literally thousands, of open cases stacked in files on desks, said a foreign investigative reporter here to cover this case.

The other problem is as in every country there are separate divisions: 1) police, 2) district attorney/court and 3) immigration. Now newspaper reporters, international TV journalists, private investigators and several different Thai police divisions are looking for justice by aiding in the communication between these three separate groups and uncovering the trail of Mr. Shaw, she added.

Mr. Shaw is known to have at least two passports: one issued by the UK and one by Australia. Police seized and kept his UK passport when Interpol issued the arrest warrant and the Immigration Police arrested him on arrival at the airport in Bangkok.

Investigation of Mr. Shaw's Australian passport details show that his last departure from Thailand on that Australian passport was May 5, 2009 and his last entry into Thailand stamped on his TM 6 entry card stapled in his passport was September 15, 2009 on a Thai Airways flight into Suvarnabhumi Airport.

A new criminal complaint has been lodged at Pattaya Police Station against Lance Shaw. Mr. Brian Gaitens who lives in Pattaya and hails from the UK said he lost twenty-four thousand pounds invested with Lance Shaw in December 2006. After he sent him the money he never heard from him again.

Mr. Gaitens wrote this after reading the Pattaya Times about others who filed criminal charges for the scam of Lance Shaw, “ On October 26, I made my report/statement at the police station on Beach Road….it was signed and officially stamped by myself and the police officer who made the report, they did say it would take one week before it could be processed and sent to the district attorney's office, my wife also called district attorney's office and explained that I had made report, they said she should call back in around 1 week and they will tell her if they have received report, if not they would call police and ask why they have not received the report, so I totally understand district attorney is serious about trying to help us all!!”

Staff from PAPPA Co., Ltd. then went to Nong Pali Jail and was told Lance Frederick Shaw got on bail on September 15, 2009 with one million baht paid by Mrs. Buapun Wuntasee. Further questioning revealed a policeman was there to get Lance Shaw and told the jailer Lance had another case against him. Authorities are checking to see who the policeman was and why he was at the jail.