Welcome to Hell

by Colin Martin

  The police arrived minutes later and Hayes stumbled out to their pick-up. The lieutenant told me that I shouldn’t have hit him.

  I asked him what was I supposed to do? I told him that I wasn’t about to give him a chance either to fight or to run.

  To be honest, it felt good to thump the bastard. He’d caused me a lot of pain. In that moment, I didn’t really care about the consequences of my actions, and I certainly hadn’t been thinking about the law.

  Hayes tried to bluff his way out of custody. He said he thought O’Connor and OCS were genuine. He actually said he had nothing to do with the financial dealings of OCS and claimed that he was a victim too.

  He said he’d quit working for OCS in December because they hadn’t paid him.

  I didn’t believe a word of it. I told him that the police had already rounded up all the secretaries and office staff he and O’Connor had hired. I was lying through my teeth, but he didn’t know that.

  Eventually I proposed a deal. If he returned his share of the money they’d stolen, and if he was willing to help the police to find O’Connor, then I would talk to his trial judge and say that he was only a small player in the scam.

  I knew O’Connor was the boss. I wanted him more than Hayes.

  It didn’t take Hayes long to betray his partner. Criminals are all the same. They’ll always sell each other out. He claimed that O’Connor had only paid him $80,000, of which he had spent some on a holiday, but that he still had $60,000 left – about 1.5 million baht.

  Pleading for mercy, he said he would hand over all of it if I promised to keep to our agreement. I said I would.

  The police agreed to the proposition and offered to take Hayes to the bank to withdraw the money. I said I would return the next day to collect the cash. I decided to bring a lawyer with me, just to make sure that everything was legal and above board.

  This turned out to be a good idea.

  When we got to the police station the next morning, Hayes had changed his mind. When he withdrew my 1.5 million baht from his account, the police had apparently seen their opportunity, and began to give him all sorts of advice. They actually told him that he didn’t have to return the money until after the court case.

  They advised him to charge me with assault. And they also encouraged him to demand that I drop all charges against him before returning the stolen money.

  I now found myself on the losing side once again – but there was no way I was going to drop the charges. I asked the lawyer for his advice.

  Speaking with brutal honesty, my lawyer said I didn’t have a choice. If I didn’t drop the charges and take the money, then Hayes would use it to make bail, and get out anyway. If I wanted the money back, I was going to have to accept the deal.

  Against my better judgement, I took the money and dropped the charges.

  Nothing is what it seems in Bangkok. When it came to counting the money before signing for it, it was short. There was a lot missing – a little from each stack of bills, but totalling around 100,000 baht (US $400). The police had helped themselves.

  There were two policemen in the room where I counted the money. They kept staring at me. I asked the lawyer what to do. He whispered that it would be best just to finish counting, take the money, and go. If we complained that there was money missing, it would mean the police would have to have an internal investigation, and they’d hold the money for longer.

  It had only been in the police station overnight and there was 100,000 baht missing. I wondered how much would be missing by the end of the investigation.

  After I finished counting the cash, I withdrew my complaint against Hayes. He had been using this pseudonymn for years, I found out, and was from New Zealand – not Australia. This was the reason, the police said, they hadn’t been able to find him.

  Before finally withdrawing the charge, I made it clear to Hayes that any one of the 30 men could re-charge him at any time. I wanted him to know that he wasn’t home free. He was going to have to help find O’Connor whether he liked it or not.

  This frightened him to the extent that he suddenly remembered where O’Connor lived, and where his favourite restaurants and bars were.

  Thinking that they were going to earn more money, the investigation team offered to drive to O’Connor’s house and arrest him.

  Hayes said O’Connor lived about 30 km away.

  I waited in the patrol car while the officers went into the apartment. After about half an hour, they came back. They said O’Connor wasn’t there and had checked out.

  But they said they would now place a spy there. They promised that if O’Connor ever returned to his apartment they would get him. He wouldn’t escape.

  There wasn’t much more I could do.

  I took some solace when I read the morning papers the next day. When I first started searching for O’Connor and Hayes, I contacted a number of journalists who highlighted my case. They had reported the original con and now they reported about how I had caught Hayes.

  This prompted Hayes to leave Thailand the moment he was released from custody. His cover blown, he jetted off to destinations unknown.

  Now the only thing left for me to do was wait for news of O’Connor.

  There wasn’t any point in going back to Europe anyway. I had lost everything. The bank had taken my business and repossessed my house to pay back the money I’d borrowed. My wife had left me and taken our three children back to Ireland. I had nothing left but time on my hands.

  4

  In time, I built a new life for myself in Thailand. I gradually got used to Bangkok, its climate and its food. You could say that I gradually immersed myself into the city’s culture.

  I grew to love the smells and sounds of the city, its people and even the constant traffic.

  I also got to know my way around the city and its back streets. I moved into a small house outside the city. I bought food in the local market every week and discovered the joys of eating Thai food. I enjoyed a good quality of life.

  All the time, the people fascinated me. While warm and friendly, they looked upon all foreigners as outsiders or as a potential means to escaping whatever problems they had. I would in time learn that nothing they said could be taken at face value, but at that time I was alone.

  And I was desperately lonely.

  I missed my children who lived with their mother in Ireland. I would talk to them by phone but I often felt like there was a part of me missing.

  They say every cloud has a silver lining. I thought that mine was Nanglung, a beautiful-looking girl who had acted as my translator during my dealings with O’Connor and Hayes.

  Nanglung and I had remained friends after O’Connor vanished. Her name meant Waterfall and I found her exotic and alluring. When I decided to stay in Thailand and search for O’Connor, she helped me. I was wild about her. I couldn’t help but fall for her. Everything about her was beautiful.

  Don’t get me wrong – I’d be the first one to put my hands up and say that I don’t think she loved me for my looks or in any genuine way.

  Thai women become involved with European men for various reasons. Some give themselves over for genuine love, but others do it for money.

  Nanglung was mostly interested in me because she believed I had money. I was attracted to her for all the obvious reasons, though I have to say it wasn’t the same as dating a girl back home. I knew the foundations that our relationship was built on. But you must remember that I was alone and far away from home.

  Eventually we got married. But when I say married, I don’t mean it in the conventional sense.

  After we lived together for some time, she brought me home to meet her parents. Nanglung grew up on a farm in the provinces outside the city.

  I remember arriving at her village which was rural and backward. Her pa
rents lived in a small house and could not understand a word of English, but I could tell they were delighted she was marrying a foreigner. It was all very surreal.

  At the time, there were two separate types of marriage in Thailand. The first was a Buddhist ceremony of traditional Thai marriage, and the other was a legal process of marriage registration with the Thai authorities.

  Nanglung chose to marry me in a Buddhist ceremony which simply involved me visiting her village and asking her parents for her hand in marriage. I had no interest in entering into a legal marriage because I was still married.

  The traditional arrangement suited me fine. In Thailand, a couple gets engaged during a ceremony known as Thong Mun. This involved me giving gold to Nanglung.

  Whether traditional or official, Thai marriages involve a tradition called Sinsod. This is the custom of paying a dowry to compensate the bride’s family for the mother’s milk. Although I was told there was no set amount, the sum was determined by the suitor’s wealth. In my case, her family believed the Farang, or foreigner, marrying their daughter was wealthy. Little did they know. I gave them some money and they seemed genuinely delighted. The whole village shook my hand that day.

  I have to say that the whole experience didn’t mean that much to me. I couldn’t talk to her parents or hold a conversation with her family, but I was obviously being taken quite seriously by everyone concerned. Her parents certainly regarded our wedding as a lifelong commitment. In the eyes of the Buddhist religion, marriage is sacred and everlasting.

  I did love Nanglung. She was my only real friend at the time. At the time, I would have done anything for her. In fact, I did everything, and more and she reciprocated it. She fell pregnant soon after we moved in together. Almost a year later, she gave birth to a son. I called him Brendan.

  * * *

  Although I now lived in domestic harmony, I never stopped searching for O’Connor. He became my obsession. I checked his favourite bars and restaurants regularly and I continued to pay the motorcycle taxi boys to look out for him.

  I also kept in contact with the police, and telephoned them at least once a month to check on the progress of the investigation.

  The answer I received was always the same: they were still looking for O’Connor, but they said he hadn’t left or entered Thailand, or even returned to his apartment since the fraud.

  I didn’t trust them one bit and continued to offer a reward for any information on his whereabouts. This generated some leads from time to time. I’d rush off to a bar or a restaurant after getting a tip-off to say he was there, but it would never be him.

  One time, a friend of mine came back from a holiday in the Philippines and swore that he’d spotted O’Connor. I caught a flight the next day to Manila. I found the town, I found the bar, I even found a prostitute O’Connor had spent the previous night with. She showed me his hotel, but he had already checked out. He had vanished once again.

  Still, I didn’t give up.

  Two and a half years passed before I got a real lead. And it happened in the most unlikely of places. Because I was European, I was forced to leave Thailand every three months in order to get a new tourist visa.

  I often travelled into countries neighbouring Thailand for a few hours or a day to give the impression that I was a tourist travelling through the region. On one such trip in June 1997, I crossed the border into Laos to spend a few hours shopping before returning to Thailand.

  While I was in Laos I met an Australian man, and we got talking. One thing led to another, and I told him my story.

  After I’d finished, he said that he knew a man who fitted O’Connor’s description. At the time, I carried a picture of O’Connor with me at all times, and I showed this to him.

  ‘That’s him,’ he said. ‘That’s Mitch!’

  Mitch, he told me, was a crook – a professional con artist – and was best known for selling and dealing in fake diamonds. He had organised scams selling fictitious gold and diamond mines, and even sold fake share certificates. To the best of my friend’s knowledge, at the moment he was involved in something to do with construction machinery.

  He said he didn’t have Mitch’s address or phone number, but would try his best to locate him for me. I gave him my work and home phone numbers.

  A few weeks passed without any news. Then when I went home one night, my wife told me that someone had called and wanted me to call them as soon as possible. It was my friend.

  He told me that O’Connor was currently operating a construction scam in Bangkok. He gave me his address and phone number. This was the closest I’d ever got to O’Connor.

  I was determined to make no mistakes. If living in Bangkok had taught me one thing, it was not to trust the police.

  So I decided to find O’Connor myself. I planned to entrap him and call in the police when I had him cornered.

  I felt alive for the first time in years. I quickly began investigating O’Connor – and discovered that he had never even moved out of his apartment.

  I hadn’t bothered checking his apartment because I didn’t think anybody would be stupid enough to stay at the same address if they knew the police were out looking for them.

  It was then that I realised that the police had been lying to me for years. They’d never looked for O’Connor, and they’d certainly never tried to arrest him.

  There was only one explanation that made sense: O’Connor must have paid them off. Nobody could walk around so freely if the police were really trying to arrest them. Nothing else made sense.

  Given that I knew I couldn’t trust them, I figured there was a good chance that they’d tip him off if I told them of my plan.

  I tried to remain calm.

  I knew I couldn’t risk phoning him, just in case he recognised my voice. So I asked one of the secretaries at the company I was working for at the time to do it for me. She phoned O’Connor and explained that she worked for a large construction company, and her boss had heard he had some machinery for sale. She said the boss was interested in buying equipment if the price was right.

  O’Connor took the bait. When I arrived at work the next morning, I found a fax waiting for me. It was signed Mitch. He’d sent an introduction letter and a list of his machinery for sale and the price per machine.

  I couldn’t believe it – his company was called Offshore Construction Services. He hadn’t even bothered to think up a new name.

  Although I wanted to go and punch his lights out there and then, I knew I had to play the long game. If I jumped straight in he’d know something was wrong.

  So I responded to his fax in writing and asked for more information about the machinery for sale. I signed off as Mr Bill Turner.

  For the first time in years, I felt as if I was winning. I asked a number of friends for help.

  An American friend of mine called Chuck offered to play the role of Bill Turner.

  Chuck telephoned O’Connor and told him that he was interested in some of his machinery, and arranged to meet at our offices to discuss prices and payment.

  I told Chuck to offer O’Connor an incentive to arrive on time. He told O’Connor that if they could reach an agreement at the meeting, then he would place a cash deposit on the machinery. Chuck offered him $300,000 up front.

  O’Connor said he’d be there.

  I knew we had him. The cash deposit would bring him for sure. He wouldn’t trust anybody else with that amount of cash and would come himself. But I still had a hell of a lot to do before the meeting.

  A friend of mine had a brother in the police. I asked him and another officer to attend the meeting and arrest O’Connor when he arrived.

  I explained everything to them in detail, and why I couldn’t trust the tourist police in Bangkok. They both agreed to help.

  Now I only needed somewhere to hold the meeting. />
  The solution turned out to be easy. The company I was working for was in the middle of building a new construction yard and offices. Most of the buildings were half finished, but there was a small office block that had just been completed. It would be perfect.

  I faxed O’Connor a map giving directions to the office and set the date of the meeting for 21 July 1997, at 1 p.m.

  Everything went according to plan. But I was still worried that O’Connor might not come alone. If he brought a lot of men with him, I would be in trouble. So I asked my secretary to ask for the names of those who would be attending the meeting, and some form of photo ID so that our security people could issue them with passes.

  O’Connor didn’t suspect a thing, and faxed a copy of his passport immediately. He also sent one belonging to a man named Brett Holdsworth.

  He was O’Connor’s bodyguard. Would you believe that O’Connor actually said that Holdsworth was coming in case we gave him a large amount of cash? He really thought that we’d fallen for his con and he was coming to pick up an easy $300,000.

  On the morning of 21 July, everything was going according to plan. I had set up the office with a clear view of the main gate to see O’Connor when he arrived.

  We waited for little under 30 minutes before O’Connor arrived. Chuck greeted him, then escorted him to the office.

  I can vividly recall Chuck approaching O’Connor with his hand outstretched. After they shook hands, Chuck pointed O’Connor and Holdsworth in our direction and asked O’Connor to wait inside, before making an excuse and disappearing.

  Next, one of my Thai friends went to the door and ushered O’Connor and Holdsworth in. I was sitting behind a desk in the office, with two armed police positioned just behind the door.

  O’Connor came in first, followed by his bodyguard. When he saw me, he stopped dead. All he could say was, ‘It’s you!’

  O’Connor next looked at the police, then back at me. He was trapped and he knew it.