Crime

Sex Tourism Still Thrives in Asia, While Sex Offender Appears in Canadian Court

Canadian Christopher Paul Neil sits in the cell at criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand Friday, Aug. 15, 2008. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP,Sakchai Lalit

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – As dusk falls and lights flick on amongst a hodgepodge of restaurants, nail salons and dance clubs overlooking this Cambodian capital’s waterfront, tuk-tuk taxis whisk past a reality that emerges nightly in the shadows along the street.

“In the dark, that’s where the guys will come to groom. Like there,” says Brian McConaghy, beckoning behind him at two men in creased floral prints, sandals and berets. “Unpleasant sight. Those kind of guys creep me right out.”

Brian McConaghy trains staff to care for young girls rescued from brothels in Cambodia, in this undated photo released by Ratanak International.

While there is nothing overtly criminal taking place, the former RCMP officer has investigated enough child sexual exploitation cases to know there’s something very wrong. McConaghy is in the city imparting his knowledge to a team of seven Canadian child advocates brought in for two weeks of training.

Every 100 meters or so, middle-aged and older Western men shuffle down the pathway or lean against the ledge separating land from rocks and sea.

“Guys sitting there, staring around, waiting to make the right eye contact. I’ve been down here when your skin is crawling and you’re ready to punch people,” McConaghy said.

The city is the same location where Interpol alleges one of Canada’s most infamous sexual predators, Christopher Neil, carried out his crimes against children.

Neil spent five years in a Thailand prison after experts unscrambled computer images of him sexually abusing children.

While Canada has laws that can prosecute offenders who commit such crimes in other countries, Neil has never been charged at home.

The RCMP didn’t return a request for information on possible charges against Neil.

Neil MacKenzie, a spokesman for the B.C. Crown prosecutor’s office, wouldn’t comment on if the office had received a report from police, and referred the question back to RCMP.

When Neil returned to Canada last year he was placed under a series of strict conditions to protect children.

They are conditions that he has already admitted to breaking. In October, he pleaded guilty in a Richmond, B.C., court to breaching his recognizance.

The court heard Neil had in his possession a computer capable of connecting to the Internet.

He’ll be back in the same courthouse Thursday for a pre-sentence report.

Only a handful of sex tourists, who exploit children in countries with underdeveloped legal systems and lack of child protections, have ever been prosecuted under the rarely used laws targeting Canadian pedophiles abroad.

McConaghy’s rare blend of police forensics skills and Cambodia street savvy was instrumental in convicting Canada’s first child sex tourist, a British Columbia man who trolled Phnom Penh for prepubescent girls.

After putting Donald Bakker behind bars in 2005, McConaghy couldn’t bear leaving broken girls to fend for themselves, and so he felt compelled to start the Vancouver-based Ratanak Foundation to help rehabilitate the former hotel clerk’s victims.

Canadian authorities know citizens continue to visit foreign locales specifically to buy sex with children, but overseas investigations are complicated, time-consuming and costly.

Legislative reforms announced in September by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, however, could shore up Canada’s powers to stop the cycle of depravity on home turf.

The preventative laws would require convicted sex offenders to alert authorities before departing the country — in turn allowing Canada to warn border officials before they land.

McConaghy makes several visits to Cambodia each year, this time accompanying office staff and fundraising volunteers who’ve shown long-term dedication to protecting children from such Western predators.

His goal was to provide his companions a chance to peer directly into the “big brown eyes” of children still sold nightly in Phnom Penh’s back-alley brothels, moving them beyond facts to understand the stomach-churning reality from their hearts.

“It’s very powerful in Tuol Sleng (torture prison) to walk through the little holding cells, recognizing that later on, they will see rape cubicles that look very similar,” McConaghy said of the former Khmer Rouge site, now open to tourists, used to extract false confessions from Cambodians during the Pol Pot-led genocide in the mid-1970s.

“There’s a continuum here for abuse. For different reasons and different ways, but there’s a continuum here. That is not history, that is happening today.”

Jessica Kwee, a 24-year-old Ratanak staff member whose position in donor relations involves doing a lot of paperwork, said she tends to be more of a thinker than a “feeler.” But while wandering a home for girls rescued from the brothels, she felt the trauma become personal.

Spying a group of youngsters practising a traditional Cambodian dance, she was suddenly struck by one child, about seven years old, who resembled a girl to whom she teaches piano lessons back in Vancouver.

“For a split second there, her profile looked the same — her shape, the way her hair was tied,” said Kwee. “I realized, she could be this girl in my life. We’re not that far removed, it’s just the birth lottery. I felt intense emotion. I had to stop watching and turn away.”

Also on the itinerary, the team walked the waterfront and set foot inside another infamous district containing the former “crime scenes” of Bakker and Kenneth Klassen, another offender from B.C. now imprisoned for videotaping himself having sex with girls here, and in Columbia, as young as eight.

The group also met with an affiliated organization called Chab Dai that has educated 35,000 villagers along the Vietnamese and Thai borders to identify sex traffickers.

“I truly believe the team is different from where they were,” said Peter Phillips, a Ratanak volunteer who managed the training trip’s logistics.

“It’s not just statistics. It can be an intangible when you’re over in Canada. When you’re here, you feel the value of who these children are. Precious.”

Crime

Police Officer Being Ordained at Temple Arrested for Running Scam Call Center

Police in Northern Thailand have arrested a fellow officer as he was being ordained at a temple in Ngao district of neighbouring Lampang province.

Pol Lt Col Bandit Khonkan chief inspector from the Hang Dong police station was disrobed and taken to the Chang Puak station in Chiang Mai. He was arrested on charges of running a call centre scam gang in Chiang Mai Province.

According to Thai Media Chiang Mai Provincial Police Region 5 obtained an arrest warrant for Pol Lt Col Bandit on Friday from the Chiang Mai Provincial Court for procuring illegal telecom equipment, setting up a station and using public airwaves to run a telecommunications business without permission.

Pol Lt Col Bandit reportedly told investigators that he was not the ringleader and was only a member of the gang with Chinese partners.

His arrest followed the apprehension of his 26-year-old daughter, Miss Wanuchapond, 26, and three others during raids at three housing projects in Chiang Mai on Friday, Pol Maj Gen Weerachon Boontawee, deputy chief of Provincial Police Region 5 told Thai media.

During the raids police police discovered around 12 GSM gateways, or SIM boxes, which are devices used for converting cellular networks into mobile phone numbers used domestically.

The chief inspectors daughter Miss Wanuchapond told the arresting officers that she was paid 8,000 baht a month at each of the three locations for renting thr rooms and monitoring devices.

She claimed she had no idea what the devices were and accepted the job because the pay was attractive.

Police investigators working with telecom regulators used a special tracking device to monitor the gang’s communications and learned that its base was in Myanmar opposite Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai.

The call center gang used the GSM gateways to make calls over the internet to scam people in Thailand out of million of baht.

The GSM gateways transmitting signals via SIM boxes to convert them into domestic phone numbers, duping victims into thinking they were being called from Thai government agencies.

Pol Maj Gen Weerachon said that each SIM box held 32 SIM cards, with a capacity of up to 300,000 calls a month. The seized devices had made fraudulent calls over 3.6 million times.

He said the their investigation is ongoing and they are working to track down the remaining conspirators, including Chinese and other Thai suspects.

Authorities are still deciding whether Pol Lt Col Bandit will be dismissed from the force, he said, adding that so far, no other officers are known to have been involved.

Police in Chiang Rai Launch Crackdown on Cyber Criminals in Golden Triangle

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Settha Thavisin has authorized the establishment of an emergency cyber center operated by the Royal Thai Police to combat transnational crimes committed by call center gangs along the Thai border in Chiang Rai province.

On July 19, Prime Minister Settha Thavisin directed the Center to combat information technology crimes. The Royal Thai Police (Royal Thai Police) will crack down on call center gangs in Myanmar, Laos, and along the border.

His directive comes as call center gangs ratchet up their scams to defraud people of their money, causing concern among Thais and jeopardizing the country’s economic and social stability.

Related Police News:

Machete Wielding Man Shot an Killed by Police in Chiang Rai

https://www.chiangraitimes.com/chiangrai-news/machete-wielding-man-shot-an-killed-by-police-in-chiang-rai/

Crime

Thai Immigration Police Arrest Colombian Tourists Over Home Invasions

Immigration police officers have arrested four Colombian nationals in connection with a series of home burglaries at luxury housing complexes in the Bangkok metropolitan area and Chiang Buri Province.

Pol Maj Gen Panthana Nuchanart, deputy commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, told a press briefing that three of the suspects were apprehended in Nonthaburi Province and the fourth in South Pattaya, Chon Buri Province.

According to the Bangkok Post, the Colombians were charged with stealing conspiracy and seized around 3 million baht (US$82,500.00).

According to Pol Maj Gen Panthana, the criminals rode motorcycles through housing estates, scoping out the properties and waiting for the owners to depart before committing their crimes.

He stated that all four of the accused denied any involvement in the home break-ins, but the arresting squad discovered evidence that implicated them.

Police called to home invasion

Meanwhile, police were dispatched to a luxury housing development in Tambon Nong Prue, Chonburi Province, after a Chinese man was attacked during a house invasion.

When they arrived, they discovered the house owner, Mr. Qian Peng Yi, visibly scared and with marks from being tied up with a cable. He informed police that three Chinese males broke into his home at 9 p.m., one of whom brandished a gun at him and directed him to his bedroom.

They bound his hands and feet, gagged him with fabric, taped his head, and forced him into the bed. The intruders then attempted to compel him into transferring 10 million baht in cryptocurrencies to them, endangering the life of his 33-year-old cousin who was in a second-floor bedroom.

While they scoured the house in search of riches, Mr. Peng Yi managed to flee and hide; he subsequently observed them leave with his cousin. Officials investigated the property and analyzed security camera footage from the incident and surrounding areas.

Around 9 p.m., a 30-year-old van driver came at the Bang Lamung police station after being contacted by an agency to carry Chinese customers from Pattaya to Suvarnabhumi Airport.

The driver informed authorities that he was supposed to pick them up at a motel about a kilometer from the Chinese businessman’s home. He then drove them to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, arriving at 1 a.m. and receiving 1,800 baht.

The driver took a snapshot of the group smoking at the airport gate and identified one of them as the victim’s cousin. Police suspected coordination between her and the three suspects in her cousin’s heist, who all departed Thailand on the same aircraft.

Other Bangkok News:

Police in Bangkok Discover Six Vietnamese Tourists Dead in 5 Star Hotel

Police in Bangkok Discover Six Vietnamese Tourists Dead in 5 Star Hotel

Crime

Son of Thailand’s Leading Legal Scholar on Corruption Arrested for Running Online Gambling Network

The son of a former senator and leading economist and expert on corruption and gambling in Thailand has been arrested for on charges of running an online gambling network and its payment system.

Police from Thailand’s Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) have confiscated assets worth more than (US$ 11.1 million) 400 million baht.

Narote Piriyarangsan, 33, was arrested following crackdowns in three sites around the city, according to Pol Maj Gen Athip Pongsiwapai, commander of the police Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD).

Mr Narote’s father, Sangsit Piriyarangsan, is an economist who has written articles and books about corruption and gambling. He was one of the appointed senators that were investigating the government’s intention to legalize casino gaming before their terms expired.

Police also detained 39-year-old Narayut Narakaew, the owner of the gambling website 69pgslot.com. The Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the couple for operating an internet gambling service and money laundering.

According to the Bangkok Post, police seized two desktop computers, one laptop computer, 14 mobile phones, 21 bank passbooks, 53 ATM cards, and four high-end cars — a Ferrari 926 GTS, an Aston Martin, a Lexus, and a Subaru — totaling more than 400 million baht.

Police launched the inquiry after discovering the online gambling site, which accepted funds via an automatic deposit-withdrawal system through bank accounts and deposits in the AskMePay system. Players scanned the VPay QR code as well as the QR codes for Heng Online 888 or Heng Pay Company.

Police also discovered that payments received via QR code scans were transferred to the account of Heng Pay Co and then to the gambling website’s mule accounts using AskMePay, which did not use banks’ face recognition scanning. An inquiry indicated a monthly turnover of approximately 5 billion baht.

According to investigators, the website has been up and running for around four years, with the payment mechanism in use for roughly eight months.

According to Pol Maj Gen Athip, Mr Narote owns the gaming website’s payment systems and is the director of Heng Pay Co. After gathering evidence, authorities requested arrest warrants for 14 people.

Thailand does not allow almost any kind of gaming. Even though the law doesn’t say anything specific about online gaming, it is still considered gambling. The country has pretty strict rules about gambling. Thai punters can bet on the national lottery and horse races, but they can’t bet on any other types of games.

But it’s not a secret that there is a huge illegal gaming business in Thailand, even though it’s illegal.

The illegal casinos, online betting shops, underground lotteries, and pop-up bookies that take bets on everything from cockfights to Muay Thai make a shadow economy that is worth billions of dollars every year.