Welcome to Hell

by Colin Martin

  Our bank had wanted to see it. Two days had passed and they hadn’t heard from OCS.

  I only became aware of the problem when I received a fax from my office. It said our bank was still having trouble locating OCS’s bank in the Polynesian Islands. Although the guarantee from OCS looked fine, the bank wanted some sort of official confirmation that our money had been lodged.

  When they failed to locate the bank, I was contacted and told that something was wrong.

  I managed to drag O’Connor out of a meeting to ask him for some more details about this bank. I asked him why my office couldn’t track down the bank manager in Polynesia.

  I distinctly remember O’Connor laughing when I asked him the question.

  ‘You know what those small islands are like,’ he said. ‘The manager has probably gone out fishing. Don’t worry, they’re never gone for more than a day or two at a time.’

  He assured me that everything was in order. If I hadn’t heard from the bank in Polynesia by Monday morning he’d call them himself and sort it out.

  It was the 18 December. I remember thinking to myself that with a bit of luck, I’d make it home for Christmas.

  Meanwhile, Hadawji called to say that there were now over 100 men screaming to get out to Thailand and work for Spectac.

  So far we hadn’t made a penny from OCS, and it had cost me a fortune, so I really needed to make some cash.

  But I was getting worried. My bank was still trying to verify OCS’s guarantee.

  I told O’Connor that I was under pressure and I asked him to clear the invoice quickly to give me some breathing space.

  He promised to do his best to clear both the bank guarantee and the invoice before Christmas.

  With all the men now ready to go to work, there wasn’t much reason for me to stay in Thailand.

  I told O’Connor I was going back to Holland and that I’d be back in Thailand at the beginning of January. He promised that everything would be sorted out by then. He said he’d call the bank in Polynesia himself and find out what the hell they were playing at.

  The day before I was due to leave, O’Connor called and said that one of OCS’s major partners, an Arab gentleman, was in Thailand on business.

  He’d seen some of Spectac’s paperwork and some of the men’s CVs. He said the businessman wanted to meet me before I left.

  This was again all very unusual. I didn’t particularly want to meet this guy, but I really didn’t have much choice. You can’t expect to do much business with a company if you go around refusing to have lunch with their partners. So I agreed to the meeting.

  The partner pulled up at my hotel in a huge black limo. He was dressed in full Arab costume, and certainly looked the part. He was accompanied by Hayes and O’Connor, as well as a translator.

  Everyone was introduced, and the translator explained that this gentleman was from Saudi Arabia. He’d been a partner and major shareholder in OCS for the last ten years or so.

  Without warning, he told me that he wanted to transfer my team to a totally different project, in Saudi. OCS would understand, however, if the men wanted to go home for the holidays.

  I was stunned. I had a hundred different questions running through my head, but it’s difficult to argue with a man who doesn’t speak any English. I sat there and listened.

  When the translator had finished, I explained that it would be impossible for me to give an answer immediately.

  I suggested that we stop everything, cancel the contract that already stood, then sit down and work out a completely new one. I would talk with our lawyers and, of course, the men themselves.

  As the meeting drew to a close, the man handed me a gift-wrapped box. The translator explained that this was intended as a personal New Year’s gift. I didn’t open it but thanked him for his kindness.

  I opened the box when the Arab partner left. It contained a Rolex Oyster watch, worth $3,000.

  O’Connor and Hayes stayed behind to discuss the new plans. I asked about the bank guarantee and the money from the integrity bonds. I told them the contract details could wait.

  O’Connor said he wasn’t sure about the cash. He’d have to check with Chicago after Christmas.

  I was now getting very nervous about the whole deal, but I had no option but to remain calm. I kept my composure and told O’Connor that if the men were going to go home and come back again in the New Year, they’d want their bonds returned, and rightly so. If the bonds were still required in January, they could pay them again.

  O’Connor looked at me in the eye and said he was sure something could be worked out.

  I left for the Philippines, where some of the men had been sent to work in the meantime.

  I held a meeting and explained everything as it had been explained to me. When they heard that they were now going to work in Saudi, they were as surprised as I had been.

  One of the men was wearing a suspicious expression all through the meeting. Eventually he piped up.

  ‘This all seems very strange to me,’ he said. ‘A few of us have worked in Saudi before. The Saudi authorities aren’t too keen on foreigners at the moment. They’re trying to cut back on the number of foreign workers, not increase it.’

  There were nods of agreement from around the room. I didn’t have the exact details, so I couldn’t clear up their doubts.

  Although I remained calm, I knew something was wrong. It wasn’t making sense.

  I told the men that we’d get OCS to return the integrity bonds at once. Then we’d wait and see what happened after Christmas. I also planned to withdraw the money I’d lodged in the Polynesian Islands.

  The men knew something was wrong. A few of them said they wanted to come back to Bangkok with me, collect their integrity bonds, then travel home for Christmas. Looking back on it now, I don’t think they believed a word I was saying.

  I told them to come along, by all means. But they also wanted me to pay all their air fares to Bangkok.

  What no one knew was that I was broke. I’d invested every penny I had into the OCS deal. I couldn’t pay their air fares. Besides, I didn’t particularly want 30 men all snapping at me for action and their bond money back.

  Eventually I gave them a choice. If they wanted to come to Bangkok that was okay with me, but they’d have to pay the fare themselves. I simply couldn’t afford it.

  Besides, I didn’t suspect there was going to be any problem having the bonds returned, so I didn’t think it was necessary for everyone to come with me.

  But it was their choice and their money, so I didn’t argue. It was now the 22 December.

  I returned to Bangkok the next morning with the men. When I arrived I immediately called OCS offices.

  There was no answer.

  I didn’t panic at first. I kept my nerve. It was almost Christmas. Offices all over the world were closed.

  I had O’Connor’s mobile telephone number. I dialled it, but I couldn’t get through. I kept on telling myself that everything was okay. With the number of mobiles in use in Thailand that was no great surprise either.

  I called Spectac’s office in Holland and asked them to fax and telephone OCS in Chicago. Again, there was no answer.

  It was at this stage that I began to panic.

  18 of the men had returned with me to Bangkok; the others were due to arrive the next day. When they found out I hadn’t been able to contact OCS, they started to panic too.

  I tried to calm the men down. I explained to them that there was no reason to get alarmed just yet. I told them that once I managed to speak with O’Connor, it would all be sorted out.

  The truth was that I couldn’t even think straight. I continually tried to convince myself that O’Connor and OCS were legitimate. After all, someone not answering the phone wasn’t enough to start making ac
cusations of criminality and fraud.

  I tried to convince myself that I was wrong and just being paranoid.

  I didn’t want to think I’d been so foolish as to trust a bunch of criminals. A company so businesslike and professional as OCS couldn’t turn out to be thieves. Could they?

  We waited and waited, but still couldn’t get hold of O’Connor. There really wasn’t much we could do.

  Nobody wanted to involve the police. I told myself that O’Connor was probably just out of reach for a while. Not exactly a crime.

  Still trying to be rational, I said we should wait, at least a little bit longer. If O’Connor was missing then our money was too, but it was probably nothing. I tried to convince myself that O’Connor had simply taken a few days off. It was Christmas, after all.

  Days went by, and we still heard nothing.

  Christmas came and went, and I abandoned the idea of getting home to see my family. Throughout the holiday I kept trying O’Connor’s mobile and OCS’s offices but still couldn’t get any response from either.

  I prayed and prayed. On December 27, I thought my prayers had been answered. Hadawji called to say she had received a fax from Chicago, from O’Connor.

  The fax said he wished Spectac and its staff a merry Christmas. It also said that OCS hoped the New Year would be very prosperous, and that they looked forward to doing business with us.

  It was all very businesslike.

  I was bewildered. I clung to the hope that my gut instinct was wrong.

  I told Hadawji to call Chicago and ask to speak to O’Connor. I told her to tell him to call me immediately.

  She called back a few minutes later to say that when she introduced herself, O’Connor had hung up.

  I didn’t need to know any more. I’d been conned. O’Connor had stolen nearly half a million dollars.

  3

  I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew I’d been taken for a fool. OCS had stolen $460,000. O’Connor had set me up. The whole deal had been an elaborate fraud. The offices, the personnel, the technical drawings. It was all a con.

  I went straight to the police. They sent me to a department designated to deal with foreigners called the tourist police. I filed a complaint and was asked to come back the next morning, when an officer would be assigned my case.

  Breaking the news to the men wasn’t easy. As you’d expect, they were pissed off but they weren’t as hostile as I’d expected them to be.

  But they did blame me. They said I had got them into this mess and now I had to sort it out.

  I asked some of the men to file complaints along with me, in the hope that it would be seen as a serious matter and more police would be assigned to the case. Out of the 30 men, only five agreed to make a statement. The others just sat back and expected me to take care of everything.

  The following day, one of the men came with me to the police station. I also took a translator just in case there were problems with the police.

  The police wanted to know every detail, from the advert in the Dutch newspaper to the final unanswered phonecall. They asked every question you could imagine. How much did my ticket cost? Where did I stay? Who did I meet? When did I pay the money? How much? Where? Where were the contracts? Where were the men?

  The interrogation went on and on for hours and hours and hours. I was exhausted by the end of the day – but it was far from over.

  The police ordered me to come to the station every morning. I would arrive promptly at 7.30 a.m. and they would keep me there until 6 p.m.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened and I blamed myself for being too anxious to make money and for taking short cuts.

  To save my sanity, I started searching for the con men. It might have seemed like a futile exercise given the size of Bangkok, but it was all I could do.

  After spending the entire day answering questions at the police station, I would spend another four or five hours simply going around Bangkok’s bars and restaurants with photos of O’Connor and Hayes.

  I had copies of their passport photographs. I also got a photo of Hayes from a barmaid who used to be his girlfriend.

  I did the same thing every night. I wasn’t about to give up looking. I was relentless in my pursuit.

  Bangkok has thousands of motorcycle taxis, which go all over the city. I made copies of the photos and gave them to some of the motorcyclists. If they spotted O’Connor or Hayes and led me to either, I promised to pay a reward of 12,500 baht. That’s a lot of money to a Thai.

  The offer of a reward certainly drew a response, but it failed to locate the criminals.

  After a couple of days a taxi boy came to find me. He swore on his life that he’d seen Ronnie Hayes boarding a tour bus going to Pattaya, a town located about 100 km away.

  I went with him on the back of his motorcycle all the way to Pattaya. It wasn’t much fun going 100 km on the back of a motorcycle without a jacket or helmet, but I couldn’t afford not to.

  It turned out to be a wild goose chase.

  Meanwhile I contacted the tourist police every day. I gave them every shred of evidence I could find.

  I handed over every piece of correspondence that I had received from OCS: the contracts, the faxes, the bank guarantee. I even gave them my own bank records.

  At one point, I became a suspect. Some of the men thought I was part of the deception and the police began to check up on me.

  When the men heard about this, they started to suggest amongst themselves that maybe I should be locked up, just in case.

  It didn’t seem to occur to any of them that if I’d wanted to steal their money I would have done it back at Schiphol Airport.

  This allegation affected me more than anything. I’d been with the men every step of the way. Besides, most of the stolen money was mine. The men had lost only a few thousand each; I had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  The truth was that they all wanted someone to blame, and they really didn’t care who it was.

  The nearest Irish embassy was located in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I had already contacted the Irish consulate in Bangkok but was told there was nothing that they could do.

  I also got in touch with the British embassy in Bangkok. Most of the men were English, so I felt sure that at least they would get some help.

  I was eventually allowed to speak with the ambassador. I explained everything that had happened in as much detail as possible. I also explained that the tourist police didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get their investigation going.

  But the British ambassador wasn’t in a position to do anything to help us, and nor was the Irish consulate. If I was going to get my money back, I was going to have to take care of everything myself.

  In the subsequent months, I sold everything that I owned. For my own watch I got 7,000 baht. For a signet ring from my mother, I managed to get 5,000 baht. Finally, I sold my wedding ring and a small gold identity bracelet for 8,000 baht.

  I still had the Rolex given to me by O’Connor’s bogus Arab partner. As it was brand new and still in the box, I managed to get 40,000 baht for it. When I had sold everything, I bought airline tickets for the men and sent them home.

  * * *

  I vowed to find O’Connor and Hayes. I was angry and wanted revenge. I went to the police every day and demanded action.

  After several weeks had passed, they said they could accept my complaint and issued warrants for the arrest of O’Connor and Hayes. But there was one condition: they would take action only if I agreed to remain in Thailand.

  I’d have to identify the two fraudsters after their arrest, and then give evidence in court. Without a witness, they said, it would be a waste of their time.

  Not really given much choice, I said I’d stay. I took whatever work I could get as a welder
and made enough money to get by.

  I’d given the police the copy of O’Connor’s Irish passport, complete with photo and serial number. I was told that if he left or entered Thailand, they would catch him.

  Ronnie Hayes would be a little more difficult, but the police had his photo, so he wouldn’t get far either.

  But it didn’t take me long to realise that the Thai police were corrupt and dishonest. They looked for bribes every time I met them. They were all untrustworthy and insincere.

  I realised that if I was ever to get my money back I would have to find O’Connor and Hayes myself.

  A month or so later, I got lucky. I was sitting outside a bar in an entertainment complex, reading a newspaper. It was about seven in the evening.

  Glancing up from my paper, I noticed a man in a sharp suit, with a shock of grey hair. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Strolling right in front of me was Ronnie Hayes.

  Not only was it him, but he walked as though he hadn’t a care in the world. He definitely wasn’t in hiding, or even trying to avoid being recognised. He looked exactly the same as he had when we meet two months previously.

  I felt a mixture of excitement and terror at the prospect of facing him. I watched as he disappeared into a bar. Two or three of the motorcycle taxi boys had also seen him and came running. None of us could believe we had found him.

  Not wanting to miss the chance, I walked into the bar and pulled up a stool beside him. When he saw me, his mouth dropped open.

  ‘Hello, Ronnie,’ I said. ‘I believe you have something that belongs to me.’

  He regained his composure hastily, and made an effort to remain nonchalant.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

  I smashed him with a head butt.

  I hit him again a few times, but the motorcycle boys pulled me away. It didn’t matter anyway; I had him and he wasn’t going anywhere.

  I asked the barman to call the tourist police, and gave him the mobile number for the lieutenant in charge of my case.