He says he hobnobs with Royalty, civic leaders, diplomats, police, army and naval officers and adds that he is the ‘most credible and reassuring person to make Thailand his home’™. American Drew Noyes is a man of many parts. He has claimed to be a lawyer, a real estate developer, a stock-broker, a journalist, a dedicated family man and a man enraptured with Thailand. But now the social networker and newspaper publisher is mired in controversy. An old newspaper investigation into his time in the realty business in the United States has come to light. His credentials have been questioned and to cap it all he has put a picture of himself and the American Ambassador to Thailand on an internet dating site where he has been looking for Filipinas to bring to Thailand. ‘“ Andrew Drummond reports
From ANDREW DRUMMOND,
Pattaya, September 9 2011
It’s hard to believe that a small ground floor office along Thepprasit Road in the be each resort of Pattaya is the centre of a media empire housing Thailand’s biggest selling English language newspaper.
It’s also difficult to believe this building houses the ‘biggest advertising and promotions agency in Thailand’, a stock-brokerage, a law office, a property company, as wll as the Pattaya Times, an English language newspaper ‘with a circulation of 500,000’ about ten times that of the Bangkok Post.
Pattaya Times caption: US Ambassador to Thailand H.E. Christie A. Kenney and Drew Noyes publisher of the Pattaya Times newspaper tour several new US Factories in Rayong Province in the Eastern Seaboard
But these are all claims made on the internet by Drew Walter Noyes, who describes himself as the ‘most credible, friendly, reassuring professional to make Thailand his home’.
Drew Noyes says he mixes with the best. Take this for instance in July this year on Twitter.
“Just saw Yinglock (sic) here at the Intercontinental Hotel Bangkok when I’m with the US Ambassador for Independents (sic) Day celebration. I gave her’¦.’ At this point he ran out of words”.
Noyes clearly likes to see his name associated with the United States Ambassador to Thailand but it now seems he may have drawn too much attention to himself by posting the picture of himself and Ambassador Christie Kenney (at a Thai ‘Jelly Belly’ sweet factory) on an internet social networking site.
Not only that, but on www.tagged.com, which the New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo described ‘as one of the worst social networking sites I have ever have ever encountered’ Noyes is seen to be advertising for Filipinos for his Pattaya office to replace Thais, who have left his employment.
Currently he has two Filipinas in his employ.
The ‘Tagged’ site gained notoriety a couple of years ago in a child porn scandal. Pictures of children as young as five years old being abused were allowed to stay up on the site for months.
But up there on the net too are pictures of Noyes with senior police in Chonburi and the Pattaya Immigration Department, a Thai senator, and the Mayor of Pattaya, Ittipol Kunpluem whom he describes on the net as ‘my best friend.
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| Noyes and Mayor of Pattaya. Noyes claims to be his international advisor |
Unless they have a keen sense of irony, the members of Tagged appear to be lapping him up.
‘Wow I think you smart man’™ comments Katsarina R. ‘You look nice she says again below a picture of a pallid Mr. Noyes with a police officer and Thai senator. Others called Premyuda, Champagne and Richana join in.
On the site Mr. Noyes has revised his age downwards from 55 to 46. He says his status (married/single) is ‘complicated, and claims he is in Newport Beach, California, one of his old stomping grounds, though, of course, he is in Pattaya.
-Noyes’ internet excursions may sound just all just a little bit comical.
But now in the wake of his activity on the the web comes a series of revelations about his controversial past.
An pre-internet American newspaper investigation into some of his activities in the United States has been leaked to selected ‘Foreign Correspondents’ based in Thailand.
The article appears to demolish his track record in real estate, and share-trading.
Drew Noyes the Real Estate developer
First is his claim that he is an authority on real estate. In Thailand he owns Noyes Realty. But while there is no doubt he was also involved in real estate in the United States, just what he did in the business there is the subject of some controversy.
The following certainly looks impressive on the biographies he has put up on the net relating to a US$175 million redevelopment project on Carolina Beach NC.
First a commendation from the Mayor, well probably not.
‘During his tenure as leader of the Downtown Redevelopment Committee he and a group of his investors acquired all of the condemned properties on the oceanfront of one end of the Boardwalk. Drew Noyes spearheaded the redevelopment of the historic Boardwalk by initiating redevelopment of the entire south end where the first major hotel, a Marriott is now built and many upscale businesses, coffee shops, gift shops and bars. He acquired additional adjacent properties to create two municipal parking lots for the town’.
But the people of Carolina Beach, North Carolina, have a completely different take on the his role in the property business.
An editorial in the
Wilmington Morning Star (story on pages 1 and 4 Trouble Follows Developer) in April 1995 stated:
“The case of Drew Noyes serves as a reminder that people aren’t always everything they seem to be…….
Luckily the good citizens of Carolina Beach cottoned on to his charade but not before, acccording to the Star, he had banked US$80,000 in initial start-up costs which lawyers were still chasing him to return when he did a bunk to Pattaya.
But, to coin a local expression, the sugar cane had already entered the elephant’s mouth.
Scott Gold by the way is the reporter who did an expose for Morning Star. So what did he find out?
Well more than a few guys did not like the cut of Drews Noyes jib apparently. Take the following:
‘He is a very scary guy,’ said Greg Walker, a Newport Beach, California, whose investment-brokerage company accused Noyes of stealing its customer lists.
‘The last thing anybody wants to do is give him a lot of money.’
Perhaps funniest of all though was Drew Noyes’ claim that he was a Director of the State Fair in Knoxville Tennessee for three years running from 1980-83.
As Gold reported himself: ‘His only activity there was to once help a friend open up a rib stand’.
Drew Noyes the Forex and Commodities dealer
Drew Noyes also claims that he is a ‘SEC Registered/Licensed Investment Banker, stock broker, commodities trader’.
And this is what he says in an article in the Pattaya Times headlined: ‘American Drew Noyes 14 Years of Service in Thailand for His Majesty King Adulyadej Bhumibol.
Elsewhere on the net he claims has has a Beachelor of Science in Journalism:
While the thought of Thailand summonsing his help in a crisis is indeed a romantic one, but it is not true. Not least because the National Futures Association, the watchdog body governing people who sell these shares had actually withdrawn the registration of ‘Drew Walter Noyes’…(and the Bank of Thailand see below has never heard of him)
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| From the Pattaya Mail |
That may have been, according to another allegation in the Morning Star, because Noyes has been ordered to pay back US$25,000 for selling bogus shares to one of his customers and that with interest now totals US$72000.
The NFA warns people not to deal with people who are not members of the association.
Drew Noyes the lawyer
Until the beginning of this month Drew Noyes claimed on drewnoyes.com that he was the “ONLY American lawyer certified to practice in Thailand”. After this was questioned he amended that to say he was the only American certified to manage licensed Thai lawyers in Thailand. When this was also challenged he removed the reference completely.
He also removed this part of a revolving advert on a Thai forum called teakdoor.com, run by an East Londoner called Eric, aka Dirty Dog.
Noyes answer to all this is: ” I have never claimed to be able to practice law in Thailand. I am however allowed by the Treaty of Amity certification authorized by the Thailand Department of Business Development to be a legal consultant and am educated and a person learned in Thai law as it pertains to foreigners in Thailand. Our attorneys practice law.
“A lawyer, according to Black’s Law Dictionary, is “a person learned in the law; An attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law,” he added.
(Had he read on he would have read that even in the United States the expression is not used to even cover para-legals, if that is what he is claiming he is)
He even claimed falsely to be a member of the American Chamber of Commerce’s Law Committee.
He does not state how he is learned in Thai law or any law. But a spokesman for the American Chamber of Commerce says he is not on their Law Committee as he claims (above) but ‘ as a member of AmCham he is welcome to attend if he wishes’.
Drew Noyes the journalist
In the eastern seaboard of Pattaya no-one actually requires an educational or journalistic qualification to be a journalist on an English language newspaper. The ability to speak and read English will suffice.
And newspapers in this city are inclined to exaggerate both their awards and actual numbers of readers.
This for instance is the circulation of the Pattaya Times he is claiming in the American Chamber of Commerce members directory.
Drew Noyes says he has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee.
Noyes said he moved to Thailand for the following reasons. Here he is writing in the third person.
“Drew fell in love with the majestic beauty of the people, the exotic culture and the diversity, tolerance and kindness in Thailand and decided to make Thailand his home. He stayed in Bangkok to establish a business under the Treaty of Amity between Thailand and the USA.
“That year Drew became enchanted in Thai language, culture and the Thai society. The loving way Thais take care of children and the elderly touched his heart. Drew married a warm-hearted Thai lady.”
However he is separated from the warm-hearted lady with whom he had four children, and living with another with whom he has three, and he has had one or two more in between. He did not learn Thai.
When he arrived in Pattaya, skipping a number of cases brought against him in the U.S., he gravitated immediately to the city’s sex trade.
He first opened a bar in Duck Square and later opened up two bars in Soi 2, Beach Road, one was called the Lollipop another the Zebra Complex.
More recently Noyes, when not editing, advising or investing, has been trawling internet social networking sites, including a short spell on ‘ Hi-5’™ and much longer one on ‘Tagged.
Last week, after it was revealed here that Noyes was being sued for calling a Dutch children’s entertainer and popular seasonal Father Christmas a drugs trafficker, a number of people contacted this site to complain about his services.
An American couple got nothing for the small 100,000 baht, they said, they gave him.
They were intimidated, they said, when during an argument Noyes said he would call in influential people. He makes these threats openly and by email.
And as the pictures he posts on the internet show Noyes does like to put it around to show everyone whom he knows.
Comment:
This article is published as a warning to foreigners not only in Pattaya but also Thailand generally. As in any country you are targets of local businessman but here in Thailand especially you are also targeted by foreigners.
The fact that a foreigner is working running an estate agency, or law office, or even a newspaper, and has the gift of sweet talk, does not mean that you will get any sweetheart deals. More often than not it means that the rate will be more expensive and you may never be able to find out what you are paying for.
I am not saying Drew Noyes does not have ‘satisfied customers’ but people are entitled to know who they are dealing with.
In this case what is worrying is of course the claim of threats made to involve influential people. But there is no evidence that any’ influential people’ will support him or that these threats have been carried out.
Pay extra and use reputable firms with Bangkok offices. It will end up cheaper in the long run. Use international or well established Thai property firms. If somebody says they have helped 1,000 people they may have just helped relieve them of their cash.
Be especially cautious about ‘friendly’ lawyers at ‘Expats Clubs’™ they are there for a purpose. Some are looking for the gullible. I have complaints from all parts of Thailand on this score. There is nothing wrong with Expat Clubs, just be careful about whom they attract.
Check, not with your Embassy. Your Embassy is not a free advice service, but ask the Embassy’™s local representative. He will often be a local resident, familiar to many of the scams and who is carrying them out. He will not tell you officially, but if he trusts you he might do you an off the record favour.
Foreigners in Thailand are losing billions in deals with duff lawyers and property dealers. Don’™t be another victim!
And finally the following picture is included because of the wonderful caption and story underneath.
“American resident of Thailand Drew Noyes accompanied US Ambassador Kenney on a tour of the new Ford Motor Thailand factory in Rayong on May 12. During the tour they ran into a close friend of Drew Noyes who was with the former Chief of Police in Pattaya and the only Royal Thai Police official with a doctoral degree, Police Colonel Sarawut Sanguanphokhai. Drew Noyes explained to the Ambassador that Police Colonel Sarawut was a great help to many Americans in Pattaya and now is the Deputy Commander of the entire police force in Rayong”
UPDATE 18/Sept/2011
Since the publication of this article Drew Noyes in an attempt at whitewash has opened a new website called wilmingtonmorningstar.net. In it he claims that the Morning Star does not exist! See below.
Should anyone wish to read the real Morning Star newspaper in Wilmington, which is the oldest paper in North Carolina, it is has now merged and they should however go to
this link. ‘Trouble Follows Developer – Pages 1 and 3.Their story is real enough, though Noyes has variously claimed he sued and the paper paid damages, or it was an April Fool’s Day joke. (Published April 1 1995)
Noyes’ links to find those credible journalists of which there appear none are merely just more links to pictures of Drew Noyes at various functions around Pattaya – next to local dignitaries of course – published in the local newspapers.
LINKS
The Strange Tale Of Drew Noyes And The Icelandic-Welsh-Scotsman
US Optimists pull out of branch opened by Drew Noyes – Outlook pessimistic
Exposed: How An American businessman sold homes for the poor in Thailand to foreign tourists
Pattaya Publisher Wanted Me As His Mistress – But When I refused…
Thai police deny they are hunting for ‘fugitive’ British journalist
Overweight journalist caught in Bangkok flood
A tale of island police and the most credible professional in Thailand
The great Thai newspaper fraud
Last foreign journalist quits Pattaya Times
Drew Noyes and the Well from Hell
DREW NOYES ARRESTED!
