Why US pornmakers remain unfazed by Thailand’s ‘tough stance’ on the exploitation of women

This is American Tony Poer. He sees himself as smart and handsome, nay even a look alike of footballer David Beckham, so much so that he even had some personalised David Beckham cards printed.

And while he may not be a multi-millionaire, on the internet he boasts a comfortable income of US$250,000 a year.

Poer, 41, is a major league sex tourist. He gets his sexual kicks and then makes mega-bucks by filming his girls and putting them on the internet……..And they pay the price.

He tells the girls that videos will not be seen in Thailand. That’s a lie of course. Bypassing government censorship is easy enough with a proxy server so his pornography is available to all. Country girls going to work in Pattaya’s nightlife can even see themselves on the covers of pirated DVDs.

When some girls discovered this they went to police for help. Today just what help they actually received is difficult to pinpoint. But the police seemed okay with the deals done.

Regardless of what people think of pornography Tony Poer should be in jail. When police raided his apartment in April this year, they found not only his videos and camera equipment, but, according to the local press, also drugs ( marijuana, raw opium) and a loaded gun – a Smith & Wesson .38 and an long out of date Thai visa.

The last offence alone would normally result in detention then deportation. The arrest at his room at 312 Spanish Condo, Sukhumvit Road, Pattaya, was carried out by the Women and Children’s Protective Special Force Region 2, according to the Pattaya Daily News and Pattaya Times.

At the police station, the local press reported, one of the girls was so angry that she slapped him on the face.

‘The hard drives were encrypted and will be cracked by the Bangkok-based cyber crimes division of the Royal Thai Police prior to the court date to be scheduled within 48 days,’ said one report.

But that is a lazy local paper with vested interests merely reporting the police line.

On paper it did not look good for Tony Poer. The Pattaya press said he faced 20 years in jail.  But in fact that slap on the face is so far the only official punishment he ever received.  Not only that, within 24 hours his documents were in order and he was back on the streets where he is today.

If the Cyber Crimes Division ever did get its stack of porn,all that’s left for the officers to do it seems is, well, er watch it.

So had Tony begged forgiveness and bought some golden Easter eggs for his captors? Oh, if these things were so simple.

For Tony is one of the lower level cogs in what, not to put too fine a point on it, fits the legal definition of  organised crime.

The Gambino crime family in the states, who marketed porn in the much same way, was indicted for much the same thing.

But foreign mafias in Thailand and in Pattaya in particular still thrive some with local partners.

So who then is Tony Poer? Well on the net he states:

  ‘My interests are law enforcement. (sic) Police volunteer programs encourage members of the community to assist local law enforcement agencies in the fight against crime by arresting criminals who break the law. ‘

Well I do not think I can deny that he has been helping police. But no,  that does not really summarise who he is. Could he be that inventor of that very handy household gadget the ‘Beaver Bong’?

Yes indeed  he is.  That’s one of his talents. And he has even patented it. That’s him on the left above. No, not the beaver, left in the inset on the right.

Four years ago he sent the relevant documents through lawyers to the US Patents Office and Registered US Patent 7,122,000 B1. The Beaver Bong  is of course what husbands keep  around the house use to stimulate their wives on the days when, I suppose, they are are not feeling up to scratch.

There are five A4 pages of descriptions and instructions on how to use this gadget and I fell asleep on the second page. But this ‘bong’ is essentially for stimulating women with bubble vibrations and marijuana.

(But don’t buy one! You’ll have more fun sitting over the water-jet of a Jacuzzi smoking a joint and
actually I was of course joking about this being a must-have household appliance. He has yet to find a production line)

So where is he getting his cash? Well let’s try the names Ghost Cash Dot Com, slogan ‘We cream the opposition’, and Butterfly Bucks Dot Com.  Then add the names Lulusexbomb, Creampie

Thais, Thaisuckdolls, well that’s enough for now.

To readers of this site this must all be getting a little bit familiar.

Sites like these with words like cash, bucks, dollars in the titles are sites which cream cash off web porn and sex chat sites.

Legal restrictions prevent me for the time being saying who else in Pattaya Tony Poer is linked to.

But lets just say they are all in  a thriving business as not many people are going to complain about losing a few dollars on a porn site?

Anyway Tony Poer hangs out, sometimes alone, sometimes with his mates, on Pattaya’s Walking Street and likes in particular ‘Heaven’s Above’, ‘Happy-a-go-go’ and ‘Insomnia’ which is where he finds some of his models.

Lulu

One of his occasional helpers is ‘Lulu’ from Lulusexbomb.com but his current girl friend is Tussinee from the website of the same name who lends an even bigger hand.

Poer was previously married to one of his models Tailynn, who is still up on the net, but now considerably older and worn due to a drugs problem, and living alone in a one roomed apartment in Pattaya.  She is not first Thai porn star to have married her producer.

Brits do this too, but on a tackier scale. In recent raids by Scotland Yard’s C14 Vice & Clubs squad, more than 50 per cent of Thai women working in brothels in London had British spouses and settlement visas.

Anyway these guys all just like a beer together I guess and at least two are linked to an Indian American called Deepak Agarwal the owner of DeeCash dot com, yes there’s that money word again, and they are all doing the same thing.

Philippines based Agarwal has a call centre in Manila where lots of little Filipinas are trained to talk on web sex chat lines, (and look after members and affiliates 24/7) something not even the most patient director has yet been able to accomplish in Thailand.

The Affiliates Manager’s is Corleone at Deecash dot com. and  Argawal surrounds himself with boydguards in Manila but I suppose any foreigner there owning a company with ‘Cash’ in the title might need them.

These guys like being in Asia for exactly the same reasons boiler rooms operate here with ease.

Now back to Tony Poer.  His lawyers in Pattaya were PAPPA Company Limited who rather surprisingly got him out of custody for bail of a mere 200,000 Thai baht. Firstly complaints were dealt at Banglamuang Police station north Pattaya then a convoy set off for the main Pattaya Police station.

Drew Noyes

This is how the Pattaya Times, owned by American Drew Noyes, reported it at the time:

 ‘Three PAPPA Co., Ltd. employees followed the police van to Soi 9 and everyone was smiles until the news that at that police station, unknown to anyone except a Pattaya police investigator and his commanding officer, that five additional women filed complaints that day alleging Mr. Poer also tricked them into acting in a sex video that they discovered was for public consumption at a price’


‘This added five more charges to Mr. Poer’s court case. The next day PAPPA Co., Ltd. lawyers bailed Mr. Poer out at the court house and he is currently free on bail, but must report to the court every few weeks until his trial’.

PAPPA say they are no longer dealing with the case. Poer, the spokesman added, was still in the court system. PAPPA is owned by, er, Drew Noyes.

But just days later reports of Poer’s arrest vanished from the Pattaya Times, Pattaya Daily News, Pattaya Today, Pattaya One news and all other newspapers in Pattaya which carried the story online.

But a source at one said it was police, said the Pattaya Times spokesman,  it was not an official of any kind, but ‘someone more powerful’.

When I went back to the first source the answer was: ‘Definitely police’. Same same but different?

Now, if it is police, my gut feeling is that this is not the Women & Children’s unit of Police Region 2.   This unit is pro-active and has gained the trust of several Embassies and foreign police forces. In any case I do not expect a witch hunt.

John T-Bone

So what has happened to other porn merchants arrested in Pattaya? Well there was the famous case of John T Bone and Kyle Milgram in Pattaya in April 2007.  John T Bone, now 63, is legendary in the industry apparently and famous for directing ‘The World’s Biggest Gangbang’ filmed with Singaporean actress Annabel Chong.

There seemed to be a plethora of porno makers down there because shortly before being arrested for making porn he was also robbed by a couple of motorcycle thieves.

 At the time he reported:

‘Mr. Kincaid star of Bangkok Street Whores and a neighbour of mine jumped on his bike and roared off to the police station (to get help).’

Anyway the Pattaya Daily News and others reported that police had raided Arygle Apartments on Pratumnak Soi 5 and on entering the apartment, they found pornography and video equipment for making porn and all kinds of sex equipments, as well as VCDs and photos.

‘The police also found three men in the room, Mr.John Gilbert Bowen (60) from America, Mr.K. M. (sic)  (30) an American-Canadian (?) and a Mr. Paul Sangsuwan (25) a Thai-American.


‘Significantly, the porno filmmakers had placed Buddha images in the corner of every room to make sure that every photo or video they took would show the Buddha images in them.
‘The police, on checking some video movies, found that the filmmakers were using katoeys dressed up as woman.  These had starred in some very raunchy, sadistic and wild movies, which had then been uploaded to the internet.

T-Bone – not so sprightly – arrest picture

‘Following the securing of the evidence, the police then arrested the three men, and took them to the police station. 

Mr.John Gilbert Bowen ( T Bone) admitted that he had rented the apartment in question some five months ago and confessed that he had set it up as a large, sophisticated studio to make X-rated movies and also to set up a website, mainly to run it as a large business with his friend.


He had hired Mr. K.M. (sic), who is also his closest friend and a specialist in photography, to operate the business together.


‘The police informed the porn makers that the practice is completely against the Thai law and was especially offensive to the Thai people and its culture.


‘The porn makers will be charged with making videos of an offensive and sexually explicit nature, sent to court and will then be passed on to the Immigration Department who would deport them to their own countries’.

And the bit I liked most.

Another Pattaya clean-up 

‘The police added that they are fully aware that there are many similar porno websites in Pattaya, operated by both Thai and farang, which will be cleaned up as soon as sufficient evidence is amassed.’

Poer in action

Despite this story being splashed across the Pattaya newspapers and even newspapers in Bangkok, T Bone and K M never even made it to court. Pappa Co. Ltd also represented Milgram.

And here’s the surprise again, try searching the story on the Pattaya newspaper websites. It’s a story which should leap out.

But much of the copy in both cases is still online because people lift copiously on the net and stick material on their own sites.

In the T Bone  case suggestions have been made that ‘satisfactory’ deals were struck. A complainant was compensated, and a girl in a video was Russian and had not made a complaint, thus there was no need for court action, is one way it was put to me. Its all seems a bit rum.

Indeed its very odd because K.M is also known as Vin Cross had apparently ovestayed his visa for four years!  And during that time in Thailand he was exclusively filming Thai porn for organisations like ‘Hustler’.

His films during that period included the ‘Asian Fever’ series  ‘shot entirely in Thailand with authentic Thai love slaves’.(there appear to be 35 of these; films not slaves that is, there are probably a lot more of them) and Asian Teen Extreme.

A reviewer for Asian Fever 33 says ‘it is better with the sound turned off as the director cannot stop barking orders’.

Forget about ‘Big Trouble in Tourist Thailand’.  Milgram aka Vin Cross has done more image making for Thailand than anyone else in the film business, bar perhaps Tony Poer.

At the same time as T-Bone  hopped it, so apparently too did a group of Brazilians arrested in Banga Na, after, and a result of the Pattaya arrests. T Bone had previously directed porn in South America and had brought a few studs over to shoot in Thailand.

British born John T Bone is now home back in the US. He now weighs 300 lbs and his starring and directing days are long since gone. Somehow it is not surprising that he claims he was actually arrested three times in Thailand.

Sex is not so much on his mind now he says: ‘When sexual moans turn to cries of pain and your lover immediately follows your orgasm with ‘Get the f%&k off me’ it is time to take notice’.

Then of course there is also the case Todd Williams, 47, another American citizen who was arrested in June 2008. According to the Pattaya Daily News he was filming with a producer/director (who left the scene)  and also put them up on the internet for commercial gain.

Though why he would put them up on the some of the sites the PDN claimed really beats me.  They were Amazon, and Online Shopping for Electronics.

Anyway Williams seems also to have been treated very leniently.

He apparently stars in an Immigration Police video of people blacklisted in Thailand which sometimes runs on a loop at Pattaya’ Immigration police station but last week he was spotted shopping at Villa, Pattaya.

Todd Williams

Most of the girls in the Pattaya sex trade are from Thailand’s north eastern provinces. They have in the main only a basic education. That they agreed to the filming is not disputed. But it is unlikely they had the faintest idea just how much Poer and his ilk were making or that the videos would be available to all and sundry.

So who cares?  Not the authorities apparently.

And who controls the press in Pattaya?

PS: That beaver thing is easy to find but be aware these sites often have unwanted cookies.

(Update: Following this report Drew Noyes published in the Pattaya Times newspaper that I was accusing local officials of being corrupt. Tony Poer called to say that he was not talking to Drew Noyes and was unlikely to again)