The Australian Crime Commission has today been blowing its trumpet a little bit, but wisely not too much, in claiming credit for the closure of a ‘boiler room’ in Bangkok in April this year.
The operators of that boiler room (illegal share trading house) were, the ACC claimed, responsible for stealing $50 million from Australian citizens. It also announced that boiler rooms had stolen $130 million from Australians in the last five years.
So what happened in that case? Well the ‘cold callers’ among whom were some nine Australians were summarily dealt with for working illegally and deported.
The bosses were not touched. At least for criminality though they may well have been touched for something else. The ‘room manager’ a Brit was also held for working illegally.
The ACC does not tell us the final upshot. That’s because there will be little to tell.
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| Report by the author on boiler rooms for the London Times in 2001! |
Each time the boiler rooms are raided the local authorities come out with the standard line. They cannot do much legally. The victims are abroad. The crime is abroad.
The raid in question was in Ploenchit. Another boiler room was raided off Sukhumvit about the same time. Same scenario. The boiler room boss was hopping mad because the police had dared to call on his private address, he said, and demanded a payment.
He thought everything was taken care of.
It pisses off the boiler room boys, because they have to start a new room and create a new product to sell. But that only takes weeks. Some can do it in days.
What the Australian Crime Commission reveals so obviously is this. The combined efforts of the Australian Federal Police, FBI, News Zealand Police, various European police forces and Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Squad have not been able to put much of a dent in Bangkok’s boiler rooms in 12 years, when the first big raid went down in Sathorn. That’s 2 years before the Australian Crime Commission was formed.
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| July 2001 – Bangkok City Tower, South Sathorn, FBI (dark blazer) Australian Federal Police and officers of the Crime Suppression Division order boiler room staff to remain in the centre of the room while they check out A BOILER ROOM operation. All the cold callers were deported. Many came back on the next plane including Stephen Burt/Sharpe who has featured heavily on this site |
The best they can do is to warn citizens not to get involved in any sort of share dealing with cold callers.
The boiler room bosses are doing fine though. They own a significant percentage of Bangkok’s foreign orientated night life.
But they are not all getting away with it – See this link
Link to the Australian Crime Commission story.
Wanted Suckers! Its the boiler room calling
Drugs, sex, rape, loadsamoney, and boiler rooms
Boiler room whistle blower released from jail on framed rape charge
I'm surprised these people can make so much cold calling people over the phone. I have a rule if somebody calls me asking certain questions, I simply say "I don't do business or even discuss my private business over the phone" then hang up.
If it is somebody claiming to be a service provider, I ask for their name and location. If they won't provide it I hang up. Hence I never ever get cold callers about anything.
We should never under estimate some people's greed I guess. Can these boiler room guys be named or can a link be provided to reveal who they are?
Rumour has it an elite squad of ex S.A.S and Australian special service guys are forming an alliance to infiltrate and break these guys after an ex British pensioner lost his savings to these guys and killed himself.
Watch this space.
Come on feel the Noyes
Hi Andrew – Apologies for posting this as a comment but I seem unable to contact you via the form. Wondered if you'd seen this documentary on youtube uploaded a few months ago. It's an amateur but very well told story about an English guy falling prey to a typical Thailand boiler room scam and his quest to track down those responsible. May be worth linking to on your website. Anyway keep up the fantastic work. Cheers, Jon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HbvY1ZDhwg
The guy has also set up a website at http://whambamthankyouscam.com/index.html
Yes Jon. I have seen it and am in regular contact with the filmmaker.