close

Andrew Drummond

“I can stay out of jail until the cows come home” – Fraudster in Thailand

FAKE LAWYER AND KEY BAR BOSS
PREPARES HIS BRIEFS

Flying Sporran’s Weekend Diary

Brian Goudie, who re-invented himself in Thailand as a barrister and former officer in the Royal Marines, and who has since been convicted of using his cover to clean out a 78-year-old woman out of close on US$300,000 reckons he has mastered Thailand’s justice system.


Out on bail and appealing his fraud and embezzlement convictions and now due to face further separate cases of ‘revenge porn’ on his former assistant and embezzling the cash of clients of his Alba Law firm, the Scot from Falkirk, says he is now getting back to his legal business,


He is so cash rich, he claims, that he has dropped prices on his ‘Key Bar and Guesthouse’ and punters can get a basic room for anything between US$10 and US$20 dollars a night.

Of course in the write ups on Agoda, Booking.com etc., he does not say that the guest house comes replete with its own Max Cady.

The #KeyBarAndGuuestHouse is of course his former ‘Jaggy Thistle’ and before that the ‘Blarney Stone’ which he acquired from former Belfast drugs trafficker Jimmy ‘Doc’ Halliday by getting him to sign a Power of Attorney while the ‘Doc’ was dying of necrotising fasciitis at the Bangkok Pattaya Hosptal – which he had caught in Nong Plalai Prison.

The bar guesthouse has been generously allocated one and a half stars and is located in the gay area of the Jomtien Complex in Pattaya and boasts four outside bar stools to watch the world go by.

Its opening party in September was attended by eight guests – five of them Russian.

Having been sentenced to three years in jail Goudie had to suffer the indignity of two weeks in Nong Plalai jail, Pattaya last month, where he had his hair shorn for the second time, before cashing in some chips to pay for his bail.  There’s plenty more where that comes from he seems to be saying. In fact in email he wrote:

I have enough money to pay bail until the cows come home.”

Goudie, jailed under his birth name Brian Goldie in Australia for embezzling some US$400,000 from his employers, a West Australia mining company, had apparently spent his time in Nong Plalai trying to sleep next to his cell’s public toilet at night time, where the shooters were not particularly sharp and by day lingering around a guards room in case of trouble. I gather a few inmates do not like him.

He is now of course as cocky as ever and for instance warns me that should I return to Thailand he has stacks of new cases to lay against me and has donned his legal gown again.

“As soon as you land you will be hit with an avalanche of summonses.  Photoshop.  Oops. Not good in Thailand,” he wrote, referring to the pictures which ‘The Weapon’ sends to this site which I have used regularly. 

(Heaven’s knows why Goudie would think I would wish to rush back to Pattaya and Koh Samui which show how tropical paradises can be changed into garbage dumps for the world’s sleaziest low-lives which I avoided as much as possible when I lived in Thailand)

Under the Computer Crime Act it is illegal to photo-shop a picture of a person to his ridicule – in Britain it’s almost a national sport thanks to the likes of ‘Private Eye‘ and Have I got New for You’

In Thailand I guess the law is to stop drawing a moustache on a member of the ‘Royalty’ – but certainly former Thai PMs Abhisit Vejjjajiva and Thaksin have had that treatment in the Thai media.

As this is not an offence internationally some of The Weapons work is shown here.

Anyway his claim that he has enough cash to keep him out of jail till the cows come home is all rather hollow for Goudie is a runner just like Noyes, who ran from charges and a newspaper investigation in the United States to come to Thailand after already having built up a history of burglary and larceny,

Goudie ran from the UK and refused to return to face a warrant issued under the name Goldie for  fraud on the Royal Bank of Scotland – and he ran from Australia after completing his jail sentence (He should have been deported immediately) just as the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal was about not only to kick him out – and make him pay costs.
The fact is Thailand would much prefer to keep taking his cash (or cash from a friend plus that defrauded from other people)  than it seems putting him up in jail at its expenses, or at least Pattaya Court would much prefer the cash it seems.  

As for those charges of fraud, and revenge porn. Will he pay bail? So far he has avoided the court by claiming (1) he fell down the stairs and (2) he fell off his motorcycle, but even Pattaya court’s patience appears to be wearing thin.

He was due up in court last week in a civil case brought by two Brits and a German which is running alongside their criminal cases against him. He did not bother, assuming I suppose that even if a judgment is made against him he will claim he is penniless…that is if anyone actually makes him pay his debt.

Foreigners in Thailand have difficulty getting back cash cheated out of them even after they have won civil cases for damages. In fact there is a 7.8 million baht civil order against him in the Miller case – that’s the 78-year-old woman from Madison, Wisonsin.

However her lawyers Sukhothai Inter Law have not been able to get hold of the cash – and they now have a bankruptcy order out against him.

Incidentally there is an oufit in Thailand which pretty much guarantees to get 50 per cent of your money back. It is comprised of ‘imfluential Thais’ and a foreign agent. They claim many successes.

Apart from having a Facebook page here they are fairly secretive. But they say if you supply the court order they can do all the rest.

Of course fifty per cent is very high – but its better than getting nothing back at all. And I advise those  seeking damages to therefore claim for twice the amount of cash they need to get satisfaction to compensate for the charges.

I would be interested to hear from any successful claimants.

About the Author

Andrew Drummond

Andrew Drummond is a British independent journalist and occasional television documentary maker. He is a former Fleet Street, London, journalist having worked at the Evening Standard, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, News of the World, Observer and The Times.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.