EXCLUSIVE: FAKE FOREIGN LAWYERS TRY TO CASH IN ON SHINAWATRA’S FROZEN BILLIONS
Andrew Drummond
Aug 10, 2014
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| Thaksin in exile in Weybridge, Surrey, before he had to move on to Dubai |
Two Scots and one American posing as lawyers in Thailand have been uncovered attempting a scam involving the frozen billions of ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Together with a third man, who acted as a ‘go between’, they promised Bill Monson, the President of Clearview Television, who was a former partner of Shinawatra in cable television, paging and mobile phone services, they could get back the millions due to him in a business deal that went badly wrong.
Monson, from Seattle, lost his fortune after going into business with Shinawatra. Meanwhile the controversial former Prime Minister made his fortune and went on to become one of the most powerful men in Asia.
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| Bill Monson |
For over thirty years Mr. Monson has been fighting his corner hoping to get his fortune back. He has yet to be successful.
Thaksin Shinawatra had denied his claims, saying he was Monson’s boss.
But the con men, who first outlined their proposals at a meeting at One Stop Service Center – in Pattaya, promised they could get Monson’s cash back from the £1 billion the Supreme Court ordered to be frozen in February 2010.
All they wanted was a few million dollars for themselves.
But three out of the four of them were on bail from Pattaya Provincial Court for various offences when the scam was attempted. And the fixer was a drifter prowling internet dating sites.
Those involved in the scam it is alleged were Brian Goudie, aka Goldie, 47, from Falkirk, Scotland, Drew Walter Noyes, 59, from Irvine, California, David John Hanks,66, from Girvan, Ayrshire, and the fixer was Jerry Weinerth, from Hawaii.
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| Goudie who called himself Jim Macdonald or ‘Mac’ identified by Mike Mitchell (right) |
Fortunately for him Drew Walter Noyes was however ditched from the scheme after Monson’s adviser told the others: “We’re not dealing with that prick”.
That left Mr. Monson and his associate Michael Mitchell to deal with Weinerth, Hanks and Goudie. Hanks and Goudie recently lodged a case against Google at Bangkok Criminal Court demanding stories about them be erased from the internet under the European ‘Right to be Forgotten’ ruling.
All deals were called off last week after Bill Monson, from Seattle, refused to attend a meeting without a witness present. But he had already been warned that a probable sting was going down.
The group had demanded a payment of US$7 million of 5 per cent of whatever Monson would win They requested he sign over a Power of Attorney to act on his behalf.
The last person who signed over a POA to Brian Goudie was former Ulster drugs trafficker Jimmy ‘Doc’ Halliday to raise cash for his hospital bills. Jimmy Halliday had been released from prison to be treated in hospital in Pattaya for the flesh eating disease ‘necrotising fasciitis’. But he died and Goudie used the POA to seize all his properties.
Brian Goudie was exposed by the Sunday Mail as a fake lawyer who was cheating customers with his expensive barristers’ fees.
He is currently on trial in Pattaya charged with posing as a barrister to cheat a 76-year-old woman from Madison, Wisconsin out of 7.9 million Thai baht (£146,000) to defend her son on child sex abuse charges. Her son was subsequently jailed for 38 years but a mistrial has now been ordered.
Goudie did not sue the Sunday Mail but he sued the journalist Andrew Drummond in Thailand and subsequently lost.
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| David Hanks identified by Mike Mitchell |
David John Hanks, is the former owner and licence holder of Masquerades Brothel in Keysborough, Victoria, Australia. He is currently on bail in Thailand charged with racketeering. It is alleged he made loans to Russians demanding 60 per cent interest per month.
According to a report by Thailand’s Department of Special Investigations Russians, who did not pay up, were beaten up. Three other Russian were arrested at the same time.
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| Drew Noyes – identified by Mike Mitchell |
Drew Walter Noyes, is currently on trial in Pattaya for extortion.
It is alleged that together with his Thai common-law-wife he demanded first 7 million baht, later reduced to 2.3 million baht (£42,000) from Australian Michel Goulet to stop a police raid on the premises of Thonglor Beauty Clinic in Pattaya, where illegal substances would be found. Goulet would also receive bad publicity in Noyes’ newspaper the Pattaya Times (now closed).
Noyes had claimed he had contacts with the police which would make this happen.
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| Finally Jerry Weinerth, identified by Mike Mitchell |
Jerry Weinerth, the go-between, used to work out of the offices of the Pattaya Times. He is a former newspaper ad salesman. He came to Thailand after his house in Hawaii burned down. He calls himself the American ‘Go To Guy’.
Bill Monson had been trying for years to get justice is the Thai courts but with Thaksin as Prime Minister although he won cases nothing actually came his way.
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| Offices of PAPPA and One Stop Service Center (sic) |
A successful American media mogul he had arrived in Thailand to help set up cable television, pager and mobile phone services, and he was told that Thaksin, a former policeman, who was then making money selling IT products to police, was the man to deal with. Thaksin ended up taking over all his operations, even at one time ordering Monson’s arrest.
Two years ago a close friend of Monson, Mike Mitchell, himself a successful American businessman met Jerry Weinerth on a flight from Narita in Tokyo to Bangkok.
He told Weinerth about Monson’s problems and Weinerth convinced him to attend a meeting in Pattaya at the PAPPA.One Stop Service Center offices of Drew Noyes in Thepprasit Road, Pattaya.
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| David Hanks and Jerry Weinerth at Pattaya Provincial Court where they acted as bodyguards for Drew Noyes who is charged with attempting to extort the bosses of the Thonglor Clinic in Jomtien |
It was in these offices that Mitchell said he met Drew Noyes, David Hanks and Brian Goudie, aka Goldie, who was then calling himself ‘Jim Macdonald’.
Goudie posing as Jim Macdonald (Goudie was born in 1967) ‘Four brains better then one’. In this case probably not.
His legal team at the time was a team of one Supanya Worakam who has never worked at the bar – well not the legal kind“Drew Noyes promised the world. He said he was a lawyer and knew everyone in Thailand that mattered, he said. He could get any foreigners arrested in Pattaya whenever he wanted.
“I realized very quickly that Drew Noyes was full of sh@t’, said Mitchell.
Thaksin “I knew that before doing any research. Then I did my reasearch. I was guided to if by Drew Noyes telling me he was dealing with a rogue journalist whom he would soon put in jail. So after a few days I told the others I did not want anything to do with Drew Noyes and would advise Bill accordingly.”
The other three however wanted to keep the door open to negotiate with Monson and act as his lawyers.
“They agreed. They said they thought Drew Noyes was a jerk and a prick too, but the deal could still go ahead without him,” said Mr. Mitchell.
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| Worthy but meaningless. Goudie seeks the frozen ’30 million’ claiming a first year law student could do better than Monson’s lawyers. Goudie never even completed one day at law school. |
They met again with Mike Mitchell this year just as the World Cup was playing off in Brazil. And they almost got Bill Monson hooked.
Goudie seeks POA Said Mitchell: “The man ‘Mac’ whom I now know as Goudie had a very convincing manner. He said he had done some research and found that Bill had been badly advised by his previous lawyers who were cheating him. He said he could bring cases against Thaksin for the recovery of equipment and then after that more and more cases. There was no statute of limitations on these cases as Bill had been advised. He sent me emails outlining his position.
“I had to say, yes, Mac was very convincing. And I reported back to Bill who asked me to look at it further. But the more I looked the worse these guys appeared.
“They could not stop talking about themselves. Mac/Goudie had told how he had seen Thaksin in Dubai and Thaksin had sent a Bentley to pick him up at the airport. Thaksin, he said, was remorseful and might even settle with Bill personally.
“Looking back I do not know why I listened to all this cr@p. They kept trying to get me to persuade Bill to sign a POA.
“Meanwhile David Hanks, who also said he was a lawyer, started talking about his brothel. He said: ‘Look. You are going to hear bad things about me but it’s all rubbish.’
Drummond “I thought, what the hell is going on with this guy. Why is he telling me this? He also said he knew all the main characters in an Australian television documentary series called ‘Underbelly’.
“He regaled me with underworld stories of how the villains in Australia froze their victims’ bodies, because then they were easier to cut up with a saw. It was all over the top stuff.
‘Then to cap it all they rang me up and said they wanted to take me out for a drink. And they took me to Pattaya Soi 6. A street of bars with low rent prostitutes charging thirty bucks for sex in an upstairs room. It was all gross.
“But even these girls were too expensive for Jerry. He said he got all his ‘one night stands’ from dating sites. That way he did not have to pay any fees.
“I thought about Bill who is a strict church going Christian and what he would think of these people.
“Then Mac also said that I might hear bad things about him and see his photograph.
But they were all written by a bad journalist and he was suing the pants off the journalist. But by then I had read it all and knew which side I believed and was determined to sort these guys out.”
At this stage Mike Mitchell started recording all his skype calls and contacted journalist Andrew Drummond (owner of this site) in Bangkok and a meeting was arranged with Bill Monson, who agreed to play the phony lawyers along for a little longer.
Said Bill Monson: “Last week our conversations were terminated. I had agreed to a meeting if I could bring along a witness. Weinerth refused. I have better things to do than to talk to these people.”
He said he had known for quite a while what sort of people these were and would be raising the matter with officials of the ruling military government and would support Andrew Drummond in Bangkok.
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