Flying Sporran’s Weekend Dairy
It was a quiet day, so I thought I might ask the lawyer for ThaiVisa.com a question. Thaivisa, as most of us know, is the biggest forum and news aggregator (lifter) in Thailand. It’s a big business which has branched out into real estate and now apparently bars.
I asked the lawyer, in their ‘Ask the Lawyer’ section of course, this question:
‘I am a foreigner and have brought some money into Thailand in a suitcase and want to invest in a business here. Now I know I can only hold 49 per cent of a company in Thailand, so if I put the company in the hands of the nominees, how do I control the nominees? Or should I take my money out again and bring it in throught the banks?’
I waited and waited for an answer but the answer never came, maybe because my letter was deleted by a moderator, because I never saw it appear.
The lawyer Somsak Chokapa * (That’s his picture above.) is doing okay but not half as well as some of his clients) judging by some of the cars I have seen them driving.
He could have answered:
‘Well you’ll need immigration police, local police, the CSD and army in your pocket and three or four knuckleheads or gorillas to work with you if you want to set up an immune company that way.”
Or he could have provided the honest and legal answer which is:
‘Take your money home and bring it in officially so it shows through the banks, and when you open a company in partnership with Thais they have to be TRUE investors too.”
Anyway, as I said, he did not answer and I notice at the moment there are many questions he has not answered.
Now ThaiVisa I should point out in a disclaimer states that ‘Chopaka’s Siam Firm Inter Laws provides general advice to legal matters in Thailand and is sponsor of Thaivisa but is not affiliated in anyway with its staff, moderators or other persons related to Thavisa corporations.’
That is good because Siam Firm Inter Laws was removed from the list of British Embassy lawyers list quite some time ago – and Somsak is featured together with the ‘Wolves of Bangkok’ in multiple companies. He obviously did not ask where the money was coming from for a lot of these companies, or if so, must have been misled. This all started leaking in June here on this site promoted by the victims of the Wolves of Bangkok.
According to ‘fraudrecovery’ Somsak Chopaka was co-director of a defunct firm called First Asean Consulting Co. Ltd. This company is directly linked to an American boiler room boss with bars in Chiang Mai, Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok, and the ownership of the lease of Nana Entertainment Plaza in Bangkok’s Soi 4 – the hardcore centre of Bangkok’s tourist sex industry. *
Coincidentally ThaiVisa.com shares its official address in the same suite in 2 Pacific Place – just next to the Landmark Hotel – with the company holding the master lease on Nana Plaza.
Well I guess that’s not surprising because that suite is controlled by the Interactive Group the ‘Official Legal and Accounting Service Provider for ‘Thaivisa.com’.
Now Interactive Associates is a name to conjure with. This was started by two men who broke away from Sunbelt Asia, formerly a main advertiser on ThaiVisa.com.
Now Interactive Associates is a business partner of Thaivisa and there is no love lost between these companies.
One of the two founders of Interactive, lets call him Kristoper Stephen Melson, was former ‘foreign business adviser to Sunbelt’ and the authorized representative for Sunbelt to the Australian-Thai Chamber of Commerce, though he is American. He is now the 2nd Lieutenant to an American boiler room king with many bars in Sukhumvit and Nana Plaza and is a 39% shareholder in The Nana Group Co Ltd which has the master lease to Nana Plaza – and he has a passport full of stamps.
This guy mainly goes east though. Interactive appears to have dabbled in the Bitcoin business which is one way of hiding real cash. Telephone numbers for two Bitcoin companies trace back to them. But in Thailand (which initially banned Bitcoins) they can only be bought with Thai baht. The fad seems to have faded though.
 |
| ‘K’ and ‘nominee’ |
So yes. It’s all a bit incestuous and this is Bangkok after all. Nothing too surprising so far in the general scheme of things – but hang on a minute.
 |
| Darren McNicholas |
Remember I did a story about two guys called Klein and McNicholas? That was Bill Klein and Darren William McNicholas.
They ran a company called Essential Integrated Systems which supplied the VOIP lines so, unknowingly to EIS of course, boiler room wolves could cold call potential victims at virtually no cost.
But knock me down with a feather! William Anthony McNicholas was also a director of Ultimate Consultancy Co. Ltd. which is defunct but was located at 172/1 Liberty Park Building 1 on Soi Sukhumvit 23. At the same address was also a company called C M W Asia Co. Ltd., which formerly had Somsak Chopaka as its director.
Now C M W Asia Co. Ltd. also has as a current director a William Jared Klein. And a firm called Twisted Republic Co. Ltd. had as one of its directors a William Jared Kleen. (Kline/Kleen geddit? Bill Klein?)
(Now often foreigners deliberately mispronounce their names on company records. There is a reason for this and readers of this site will know that Brian Goudie actually writes his name in Thai as Brian Goldie in Thai company registers)
William Jared Gleen, oh sod,it, Bill Klein, used 172/1 Liberty Park Building 1 on Soi Sukhumvit 23 as his address as a shareholder of Twisted Republic Co. Ltd. This company has now changed its name and now has its address in Sukhumvit Soi 11 – the new company, dare I say it, is Boiler Room Central, and Mr.Klein has become a shareholder of the new company.
If you follow links from this address it will then take you on to a huge chunk of ‘boiler room’ or ‘Wolves of Bangkok ‘ owned operations run by a different Wolf, this one being of British extraction, who apparently does have knuckledusters.
Now go to the ITF building in Silom, Bangkok. I am sure I have been there before. This is the home of Bangkok International Associates – and Somsak also has an office there two floors down.
I do not know if any crumbs are falling from the ITF table – but BIA which represents another ‘Wolf’ partner company is also tied through clients to many bars in Soi Cowboy.
And some bars in Cowboy, not seemingly as yet owned by the Wolves are now openly advertising Wolf owned nightclubs.
A couple of bars in Cowboy are openly owned by the ‘Wolves’ who encourage their staff to go there which may be why bar fines* are now 3000 (US$100) baht in many of this street’s bars.
But this is good. Bangkok is no longer the cheap sex capital of Thailand. Punters can now expect to pay another US$50 to US$100 for a more romantic association. (This is a date – see below)
It’s a good way so get your money back – as is supplying your openers and closers with ice and cocaine and I do not mean bar openers and closers.
So, well, nobody cares about all this. But is Thai Visa indirectly putting up the bar prices in Bangkok – I think we should be told. There are a few punters on the forums who will not be happy.
ThaiVisa’s own bar by the way on Sukhumvit Soi 7 – a stone’s throw from the notorious ‘Shed’ – was apparently the former New Wave bar, which has just been demolished on the other side of the road. The New Wave was a favourite for pseudo city types who like playing pool, er boiler room boys.
* Unusually the Crime Suppression Division enforced a ‘news block’ on their arrest of Canadian boiler room boss Francoise (Frank) Giannini and a sidekick in Lat Krabang a few weeks ago. I am not sure whether this is because they are investigating or not investigating more. But at a guess I would say the latter.
Spent a couple of hours today with a man of the cloth who was visiting. No, not to take my last confession or read me the rites. He was there watching fondly as my three kids came in from play calling me ‘daddy’ and went upstairs, and then his expression changed as another ten came in all calling me ‘daddy‘ too. I don’t know whether my guest was confused, shocked, or very impressed. All the kids in my street call me ‘Daddy’. Most of them I’m sure think its my name.
*Disclaimer: There is no suggestion that that Somsak Chokapa is doing anything illegal, or actively takes part in some of the companies of which he is a director, or knows where the funding came from, or associates with any criminals. Clearly these people merely think he is the best in town, well outside their other more vociferous lawyers. To be fair to Somsak even Tilleke and Gibbins has represented a boiler room in Bangkok mogul.
Wow….TV *seems* to be tied to various types of organised crime…
as the old saying goes "If you sup with the devil you need a long spoon"
By email from Robert Snow
I'm having a problem posting this , so I thought I would try this route , its relating to your recent thaivisa thoughts .
Thanks – Robert Snow
As a long time member of the Thai Visa forum I can honestly now say that sadly this once informative and member friendly portal has been stripped to the bones of its happy and great place to hang out feeling, where in days long gone it was a real pleasure to pass time away with other like minded foreigners , a place to freely pass on genuine own experiences and feelings about all things Thailand and at the same time get back in return a feeling of community and shared appreciation . The current overall bleak picture of this once decent forum is now totally different with its endless constant spewing out of yet another epidemic advertising banner or scheme offering the forum members yet another chance to part with their money and not forgetting the ever present Orwellian like moderators who's only task in life seems to be trying to make them selves feel highly important in their own little sadistic world.
Sadly as time went by George and his lap dogs stuck their noses in the commercial air and sniffed cash at the end of the forum membership rainbow , fearful of loosing this golden cash cow of members please click on this advertising banner , any thing posted by a forum member that may in Georges '' suck the buggers dry '' mind , that he thinks may upset the cash flow or cause a knee tremor for our Thai hosts was and is still removed in a flash , now we all know that there are certain topics that should be handled with care , tact and diplomacy. Not so with thai visa , where the constant excessively harsh and severe draconian moderation is drawing negative media comments and well deserved widespread criticism on a daily basis.
Robert Snow Part II
Some say that running a public internet forum costs money , yes thats correct and I'm confident that most forum members know and accept this well known fact , sadly in the case of thai visa the words , squeeze , saturate , bombard, soak , excessive and more more more are now the norm when it comes to extracting every last satang form the forum membership in an unprecedented blatant and obscene advertising frenzy . I often wonder what thai visa forum contributing members really think as they have to navigate the endless sprawl of advertising banners and obtrusive offers surgically inserted between their own forum posts , its like a bad stench that invades every inch of every page where members sadly just don't get a rest bite from the endless flashing advertising bombardment , but again sadly as soon as a member posts some thing thought to be of a negative nature towards thai visa or a paying sponsor , its draconian moderators , aptly called the kommandant's little hel pers will pull out the ever present thai visa rule book red card and put an end any one finding out whats really on a forum members mind.
Some times I wonder if the forum management team actually remember that with out continuing input from members that freely given their time to post valuable and informative information to the forums database , their would be no forum and certainly no advertising trough where the cash hungry snouts can now be found. One should ask the question has the rampant over commercialism and the increasing savage moderation mania finally washed away all traces the of thai visa's credibility and standing . These following words '' with out the forum members there would not exist a forum '' should be etched on a stone tablet and placed at feet of the the forum owner along with all the other countless assorted admins , moderators and hangers on.
The thai visa mantra seems to be so hell bent on taking the well trodden loss of credibility path by its continuing and highly dubious association with well known scam artist foreigners and ex convicts along with its bad record of past association with un savory sexually deviant ex moderators . One has to wonder what '' suck the buggers dry '' George is thinking of by climbing in bed with these dubious so called advertisers and professional advisors. With all thats currently distressful about thai visa , its no wonder that '' money first members last '' George is hiding him self away in fear of any scrutiny or questioning and as far as I can remember he has never personally stepped out from behind the cloak of invisibility provided by the moderators , managers and assistants . Yes there have been a few so called interviews with the mysterious George , mainly carried out via emails and print , but as for George actually showing his face and answering genuine questions him self , No.
Robert Snow
I notice that "OneStop…" is no longer sponsoring Thaivisa's marriage and divorce sub-forum.
I would like to think the reason being George his Boys (that George and the Moderators not George and the young waiters) have decided giving credibility to any businesses that has had Drew Noyse in the background is not good for their members.
I suspect its simply the contract ran out and was not renewed.
Perhaps the pickings were not worth the price of a banner.
From Bob: From Bob: Just for your information ThaiVisa does not own the bar they like to refer to as The Lounge in Soi 7, that bar is still New Wave, moved from it's previous premises over the road (and now with a totally different type of clientele to the original New Wave) and has the same owners. There is, though, some kind of advertising arrangement in existence between the two. Now and again ThaiVisa.com posters try to ask questions about this arrangement and the ownership but those posts are deleted very quickly! But it is fun to try to keep one step ahead of the moderators and irritate them if at all possible.
ThaiVisa was allowed to erect it's signs only on one corner of the building but not remove the "New Wave" sign. You can be sure that if they did own that bar they would have removed the old sign.
Mercifully, the sometimes rather unsavoury ThaiVisa followers only patronise the bar when there is something free on offer and seem to only have one goal, that is to try to identify others of their type. Last Thursday evening I was approached three times by the same man asking initially if I "was with ThaiVisa" and twice later in the evening if I was sure I had nothing to do with TV. After I eventually sent him away with a flea in his ear his parting comment was "I assume you're "administration" then?".
What's this about something on offer for free from Thaivisa?…. A chance to revisit one of the best laughs I've had out of a Drummond report.
http://www.andrew-drummond.com/2012/10/flying-sporran-gatecrashes-not.html
Just finished reading BEST EVER LEGAL QUESTION TO THAIVISA.COM".
Wow!
Poor guy obviously has a mental deficiency and they've bled him dry. Bunch of ****s
He posted this in a thread about national political corruption:
"hey guys i really need some help here is there any of you that might know how i can call or email the new army general its mega important life or death and i need to speak with him really bad"
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/745883-cheaters-and-corrupt-politicians-may-be-banned-from-thai-politics-for-life/page-5
Hope he sorts himself out.
So, presumably no names or pack drill for Mr. K yet, Andrew?
Well Gerry – yes at the moment while I know the identity of the players – I am not quite ready to put my head on the chopping block unless I have control of the axe.
Thank you I read you for the first time and feel like to read you all !
Based on things I have been hearing, Thaivisa may not be around that much longer — especially given online sites like this promoting it being banned … http://thai-visa.pissedconsumer.com/
lets be honest the site panders to pedophiles and Gay zionist so well protected from adverse comments by the pedo zionist gay rotweillier scotty and the grammar nazi meglomaniac metisded petercool looks after the Pattaya scum .Thai visa is nowt but a company run by con men, crooks and whoreongers