Villains Inc.
s-c-thai
`Violent' Briton gives up to police
by Andrew Drummond
A 37-YEAR-OLD Briton with a history of violence handed himself over to British
Special Branch officers at London (Heathrow) Airport yesterday after fleeing
Thailand claiming he was in fear of his life.
Glyn Barry Croft, who escaped from Parkhurst top security jail, England,
returned on a British Airways flight from Bangkok to give himself up after he
claimed several heroin syndicates had put out contracts on him.
He will be returned to jail to complete a two-year, six-month sentence for
burglary and assault.
Early yesterday as he prepared to leave Don Muang airport, Croft said: "They
murdered my `brother', cremated him and now have his ashes in a fridge. Haven't
these guys any respect?"
He had negotiated his surrender through a British journalist in Bangkok.
He said he believed the murder of his "brother" might have been carried out by
Thai police in the pay of a heroin syndicate. It was without any doubt a
contract killing.
The man who Croft described as his brother was in fact his partner in crime for
20 years. Anthony John Clements, 38 from Portsmouth, England, was shot at point
blank range in Pattaya in September as he was driving home from one of his bars,
"The Gorilla Bar", a bar used by weight trainers.
Croft said: "He was shot with a weapon issued to police officers and we knew the
people we were dealing with had those connections."
Both Croft and Clements, associates of Charles and Eddie Richardson, gangland
figures in Britain serving long sentences for narcotics trafficking, gained a
name in Pattaya as "enforcers".
Reliable sources said the two men, both of whom have a record of violence,
carried out a series of extortions. These included currency fraud, car theft
rings and selling bars many times over to Britons seeking a new life in the sun.
They were believed to have come unstuck when they started swindling rival Dutch
and Danish heroin syndicates. They extorted 25,000 pounds out of a Dane, Rene
Larsen, promising that they could buy off police to block his extradition to
Denmark. But they just pocketed the cash.
Larsen was returned to Denmark last July screaming for revenge. Clements was
later shot after closing down "The Gorilla Bar" in North Pattaya for the
evening.
Both men were well-known among a large group of foreign criminals who have set
up their base in Pattaya. They arrived in Thailand three years ago in a blue
Rolls Royce and were carrying 110,000 pounds in cash.
The car was stolen and the money was robbed from a narcotics dealer in
Amsterdam. Warrants have been issued on both charges. Clements was known in
Pattaya for his "handshake".
Croft said: "He used to strangle people half to death if they showed
disrespect."
Of his business operation in Thailand, Croft said they both acted as
"suppliers".
"Whatever people wanted we offered -- heroin, cocaine, even girls for their
bars. They rarely got what we promised but we usually got our money."
Because of the types of swindles foreigners were reluctant to complain to the
police.
He described the foreign criminal community in Pattaya as "meter thieves"...
people who robbed banks or committed frauds but were always caught.
A number of foreigners also paid the two men to beat up rivals. A Briton and an
American were beaten up in the Nana Entertainment area of go-go bars in
Sukhumvit Soi 4 but Croft claimed: "That was for showing disrespect."
The men were also known to have carried arms, a .22 Magnum and snub-nosed Smith
& Wesson. (Croft, who frequented bars, rarely paid bar fines for girls on the
premises).
In Britain the two men were better known for using other methods of violence.
"We used to roast people over a two bar electric fire," said Croft. "But there's
not much demand for electric fires in Thailand and the electricity supply is not
regular."
Both Croft and Clements had records of using violence and had served long jail
sentences. Clements had also been convicted of credit card fraud [...] from
London's Gatwick Airport and selling them in Spain, and a series of burglaries
at large country houses. Both men had also operated out of Amsterdam and
Benidorm in Spain.
Croft said before handing himself over to police in London: "We weren't that bad
really. Most of it was talk. Very few people actually got hurt."
The ability of the two men to operate freely in Pattaya for three years
highlights the resort's problems in re-establishing itself as a place for family
holidays after a bad spate of publicity abroad. Croft claimed he had been
arrested twice but had paid off police in both cases, sums totalling more than
300,000 baht.
--- msged 2.07