‘No grudge. I was an innocent witness seeking justice’ – said Aussie who sent his former ‘mate’ to Thailand’s death row.
‘WANTED FUGITIVES, DUBIOUS INDIVIDUALS’ & ROGUE POLICE IN THAILAND IN…
A HOLLYWOOD NARRATIVE THAT NEVER MADE THE GRADE
An Australian offshore worker, who gave testimony which led to the death sentence for another Aussie offshore worker and ‘mate’ for drugs trafficking, claimed he was merely seeking justice against people who cheated him.
He did not have any grudge, he said. But he was not doing it to get rid of the scourge of Class ‘A’ drugs traffickers. A court ruled his word was worthless.
Luke Cook and his wife Kanyarat ‘Kookai’ Wedphitak after their arrest
In the full reply as to why he accused Australian offshore caterer Luke Cook and his Thai wife of drugs trafficking nearly half a tonne of methamphetamine ‘Ice’ for Australian Hell’s Angels, Douglas Shoebridge, 39, from Perth, West Australia admitted it was because he had been defrauded.
” We were innocent prosecution witnesses and victims seeking justice against defendants, who are now facing criminal charges for document forgery and for defrauding offshore workers from 2012 to 2016 with bogus investments and non-existent registered properties.“
Douglas Shoebridge, added the rider ‘Not a grudge’.
He claimed he and other offshore workers were defrauded. Not a grudge, he said, but it all sounded like a grudge. And the second witness, fellow offshore worker and West Australian Craig Smith also claimed to have been a victim.
Both had had complained of bad business deals with Luke Cook through his Thai wife’s legal consultancy and both were helping police to prosecute both the Cooks for drugs trafficking. Shoebridge was the primary witness, and only person linking Luke Cook to importing half a tonne of crystal methamphetamine ‘Ice’ into Thailand for Australian Hell’s Angels.
Shoebridge was the only witness linking Luke Cook to drugs, and Smith went to court to complain that he knew the Cooks were friendly with Australian Hell’s Angels, because they supplied them with women.
Despite his claims, the Cooks do not face criminal charges for document forgery and defrauding offshore workers. But there were certainly disputes. Shoebridge had claimed that Cook’s wife had taken 150,000 baht (US$4,500) off him to start a company in Thailand on his behalf but she had not. The receipt shows it was 90,000 baht (US$2,700). The claim is not disputed. What is disputed is why he wanted to create a company. Craig had hired Cook’s wife to advise him over a relationship break-up in Thailand.
Shoebridge fled justice himself when a warrant of arrest was issued against him for trafficking East African women to the sex trade in Bangkok.
This was a particular vicious operation. The lead witness against Shoebridge, who has testified in court, claimed she had to witness an incident in which a new-born baby was drowned in a bucket because he interfered with the mother’s work on the streets of Bangkok. The death was covered up as a still birth.
Again Shoebridge claimed to be the victim.
“I’m a victim of. malicious clandestine missions executed by wanted fugitives, and dubious individuals and organisations,” he said.
In some respects he was right about some dubious individuals. He was surrounded by them, but he did not count himself among them.
But his accusations against the anti-trafficking Ngo ‘Lift International’ and the New Zealand detectives who provided their services to investigate him, while also alleging corruption in the Thai unit, which also investigated him, sound odd given his own circumstances.
For, in the Thai police unit, where Shoebridge had hung his hat, three people pulled in as ‘informants’ ran their own lucrative and illegal ‘steroid exporting’ businesses, one was a fugitive from felony charges in the U.S. and another, with a drink problem, was hoping for assistance in getting off charges of causing death by dangerous driving while drunk.
This was the quite notorious ‘Combatting Foreign Crime’ unit of the Thai Police, operated by Lt. Colonel Dullayapat Dechapornyasin, where Douglas Shoebridge had offered his services, while also allegedly bringing Kenyan and Tanzanian women to Bangkok to sell their bodies on the streets.
Both Shoebridge’s ‘alleged’ black slave business and and the rogue unit, for whom he volunteered, have now been shut down.
But apart from a Tanzanian woman, Shoebridge’s abandoned mistress, who served two years of a four year jail sentence, nobody has been brought to justice.
Dullayapat, as is customary in Thailand was ‘transferred to an inactive post’ – namely the police station at Wiang Sa in the country’s northern Nan province, where he no longer gets the rich pickings available in the resort of Pattaya.
His ‘Combatting Foreign Crime’ unit had gained notoriety for a number of reasons leading to Dullayapat changing his name several times.
*First there were those informants who were allowed to deal in illegal substances such as steroids on an international scale and turn in any rivals in the trade. This provided the unit with its greatest source of income. One of the informants boasted that the profits on dealing in steroids were so great and the penalties so low, that dealing in Class A drugs was a mug’s game.
*Secondly, according to two of the informants, Lt. Colonel Dullayapat viewed an arrest as a failure. He preferred the large bribes he demanded. Only when victims could not pay were they carted off to a real police station. This resulted in a large number of arrests which made the newspapers, but never made it to trial and the domino effect was that some publications in particular, demanded their own fees for removing stories from their pages.
*And finally this was all an open secret because foreign victims, who survived prison, invariably eventually got back to their home countries to tell their stories of Thai corruption to their local media.
Not that the media back home was very interested. Corruption in Thailand is not news. ‘My years in a Thai hell hole prison’ is better than yet another boring Thai ‘corruption’ yarn, as in the case of Briton called Neil Harley Pattinson, pictured above, who packaged and sent off steroids and became the sacrificial lamb for his for his British boss.
It is easy to see why Shoebridge could be useful to Colonel Dullayapat’s unit. He worked out daily at the gym and had for quite some time been associating with ‘foreign criminals’ – the most notable being Antonio Bagnato, wanted in connection with a murder in Sydney, on his breaks onshore while working offshore for companies which included Total Marine, of West Australia
Bagnato was in turn very friendly with Australian Hells Angel Wayne Schneider, who fled Sydney in 2012 within 24 hours of police raiding two clandestine methyl-amphetamine labs in Narellan and Catherine Fields, NSW in 2012, where his DNA was found. Thai murder police had linked Shoebridge and his Thai wife to Wayne Schneider’s murder, a full two years before the Cooks were arrested for drugs trafficking.
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DULLAYAPAT’S OTHER FOREIGN HELPERS
Joshua Pate, fluent Thai, a U.S, citizen from Dallas, Texas, where he was wanted on assault charges. A self confessed steroid dealer, heclaimed to have worked with Dullayapat since he was aged 23, initially ripping off counterfeit goods sellers in Bangkok, making up to US$50,000 a month. After whistleblowing in the Luke Cook case, he was arrested by Dullayapat with his Burmese Wa hill tribe wife near Burmese border.
He had houses in Burma and Thailand and a Shan-Burmese wife. Charged with dealing steroids and other prescription medicines he was jailed for four years, but released last year after two Royal Pardons. Now in Los Angeles he says he is writing a book about his time with Thai police. He claimed he introduced Shoebridge to Col. Dullayapat. He knew Shoebridge through his steroid business. He admitted a warrant had been taken out for him in the US for assault, but the case was not proceeded with on his return. He has also claimed that Shoebridge and Craig Smith had brought the African women to Dullayapat’s police house.
Boris Klimov, Russian-Israeli, arrested for dealing steroids on an international level. Joined after paying, he said, he paid 2 million Thai baht (US$60,000) for charges to go away and became part of the team. He was part of the surveillance team on Luke Cook. He said he was present when offshore Australian Joel McGarry was briefed to lie at Cook’s trial. When Boris was arrested by local police on a visa over-stay,he said Dullayapat refused to help. Another member of the team turned up at the lockup and he gave that member his card and pin to get him some cash. He never saw that team member again. Klimov was deported to Israel.
Joel McGarry Aussie Offshore worker
A ship’s master from WA McGarry had been accused of causing death of a Thai while drunk driving. Went to the team for help but while there was briefed to testify against Luke Cook to say Cook had offered him 500,000 Thai baht to skipper a boat to find the’ Ice’ he had dumped at sea. He did not know Cook and had to be shown a photo. Fluffed his lines. He fled. Later jailed for four years for the road accident. Deported back to Australia earlier last year.
Thierry Perenon – steroid dealer
Thierry Perenon, French, liked to wear uniform and medals, owned Top Steroids Online website illegally trafficking steroids from Thailand. Featured in news stories in Thailand particularly Khao Sod/Fresh News (English) for demanding cash from people stating his police credentials. Was involved in Luke Cook case doing surveillance shifts and the arrest of Anastasia Vashukevich.
Craig Smith – Aussie offshore worker
Close associate of Shoebridge. Is a fluent speaker and writer of Thai. He helped in translations for Luke Cook’s trial. He also became a witness against in the trial to link Cook and his wife to Hell’s Angels. While working for Dullayapat he helped Shoebridge set up Australian Stephen Carpenter for running his Pattaya ‘sex and booze cruises’. He took part in several operations of Dullayapat’s team. Including assisting a national operation called ‘Clipping the Wings of Angels against biker gangs. This year he took out a restraining order against Carpenter at Fremantle Court after receiving threats.
