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American, Aussie Arrested For Child Trafficing


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How child sex accused's cover was blown away

BANGKOK: -- If Robert Michael Scoble had chosen to run a gay and lesbian travel agency in Bangkok as a cover for disturbing criminal activities, his plan backfired.

In February, an anonymous caller to the Tourism Authority of Thailand complained about Utopia Tours, claiming it operated sex tours on the internet and damaged Thailand's reputation.

The caller, who later hand-wrote an unsigned letter of complaint, said he had discovered the company's website on the internet.

In fact, www.utopia-tours.com contains no information about sex tours and expressly states the company, part of Spice Trade Travel, is opposed to sex tourism.

Private email correspondence by one of the company's directors, Douglas Thompson, to a business associate who had been requesting hard-core tours, seen by The Weekend Australian supports that view: Thompson rejected the overture, pointing out his guides "do not provide any kind of personal service to our customers".

But the internet site would nevertheless contribute to the arrest of managing director Scoble, a 55-year-old former Australian diplomat last week on charges of possessing and distributing pornography for business purposes.

One of his partners, American John Charles Goss, 46, was also charged on the same offence, with a third person at the company, Italian Daniele Grigori, 26, arrested for working without a permit.

Yesterday they got a further surprise. When they reported to court to prove they hadn't fled the country, immigration officers blocked their taxis from leaving, arrested Scoble and Goss and sent them to the immigration holding cells.

Yesterday afternoon their lawyer was attempting to have them released on bail.

The officer assigned to investigate the tourism authority complaint says he was equally appalled by the company's website. "There was nothing illegal on the site," Inspector Apiwat Tubtimto conceded to The Weekend Australian, "but it is inappropriate and immoral to encourage gays to come to Thailand because they come here for sex." That attitude -- no further evidence or allegations about the website itself or the company's involvement in sex tourism have since come to light -- was enough to initiate a search of the company's premises.

But by coincidence, when Apiwat contacted local immigration officials to join him because the company's three directors are foreigners, they already knew of Scoble. Days earlier they had launched their own investigation into the Oxford graduate, prompted by Bangkok-based Australian Federal Police officers.

Their interest came in the wake of intense media coverage of the arrest of another former diplomat, William Stuart Brown, 51, in Bali in January, which led to revelations the Australian Government had failed to adequately investigate child sex allegations against some of its diplomats.

At first, police say, Scoble thought he was simply facing a routine immigration check. At the office of his business, police confiscated dozens of copies of a widely available homosexual magazine, Thai Guys, which contains no child pornography.

But suddenly they demanded to go to his apartment.

In Scoble's bedroom they found about 100 VCDs, along with 100 photo albums and about 20 videos. A large proportion of the images contained child pornography, including disturbing footage of a small boy having his wrists handcuffed to his ankles and submitting to anal sex by an unknown Western man.

Some of the seized VCDs have hand-written captions, apparently describing the boys by their ages, such as shots of "12 on top of couch wanking" and "12 cuffed".

At best, the material, some of which has been viewed by The Weekend Australian, is an indication of a sick collector. But police fear it hides an even deeper truth: that Scoble, and possibly his colleagues, were using the images as a "catalogue" to lure pedophiles to Thailand.

In one of the still photographs, a man performs oral sex on a pre-pubescent boy whose torso is about a quarter of the size of that of his abuser. But police say this is not enough evidence to lay sexual assault charges.

Scoble's charges can attract a maximum of three years in jail and a 60,000 baht ($2000) fine. It is not yet illegal to possess child pornography for personal use in Thailand, only to distribute it for business reasons.

Police Colonel Chuwong Uthaisang, who led the Scoble investigation, admits he has no evidence the collection is part of a wider pedophile promotion ring other than the assumption: "That's what they would do."

In fact, Scoble has once before been accused of distributing child pornography. According to a 1996 government inquiry, he used a diplomatic bag to courier photographs of young boys, some naked, some simulating sex, to an Australian mission friend who at that time was acting high commissioner. He later admitted he had sent the photographs as a joke. Following this, he was promoted to acting charge d'affaires, but recalled to Canberra in 1985. Six months later, Interpol found his name and embassy address on an Amsterdam database of a man believed to be distributing child pornography. Again, no charges were filed.

But the media interest generated by the Brown arrest has put new pressure on Australian authorities.

The sad reality is the victims of these crimes often do not have a voice. "We need to unite as a community to give them a voice," says Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty, who has ramped up his agents' attention to the matter.

Last week, Australian police liaison officers in foreign posts in the southern hemisphere attended a meeting in Bangkok to draft a new regional strategy to fight child sex tourism.

That will still be too late for many of the victims in the pictures allegedly taken from Scoble's home.

--The Australian 2004-03-27

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Former diplomat may face new porn charges

Thai Immigration revokes his visa

27SCOBLE,0.jpg

Robert Scoble arrives at the Bangkok

district court yesterday. Picture: AFP

BANGKOK: Former Australian diplomat Robert Michael Scoble was rearrested by Thai police yesterday after his employment visa was revoked pending the hearing of charges against him.

Police detained the 56-year-old businessman at the centre of child abuse allegations immediately after a bail hearing at a Bangkok district court yesterday morning.

Police sources told The Age they were preparing to lay fresh charges relating to pornographic images of children alleged to have been found in his Bangkok apartment late last week.

Scoble and a fellow director of his company, Spice Trade Travel, American John Charles Goss, were released on bail of 30,000 baht ($A1200) last Saturday after being charged with possessing and distributing pornography and employing an unregistered foreign worker.

Scoble, who was questioned for several hours yesterday at the Thai immigration police headquarters, ignored reporters' questions as he was led to a complex of holding cells early in the afternoon.

A Thai lawyer representing Scoble, who refused to give his name, said he was making an urgent application to have Scoble and Goss freed on bail.

He said it appeared that representatives of the Australian embassy were making "special requests" to the Thai authorities, the details of which were unclear. Several Australian Federal Police officers were present at the immigration police offices yesterday.

Scoble's lawyer said no indication of further charges had been given to him by Thai police.

He confirmed that Scoble had resigned from all positions at Spice Trade Travel, a tour agency he co-founded in the mid-1990s, which specialises in gay and lesbian travel.

The lawyer said Scoble wanted to spare the company from any embarrassment caused by the allegations against him. He said it was unreasonable for police to continue detaining his clients, whose passports were seized by police last week.

--The Age, AU 2004-03-27

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all i can say is

no matter which country it's in

as long as there's corrupt leaders

it will still happen anywhere

i think perhaps

such a big show of ""arrest""

is to distract the minds from other things

or to put up a show to others...

who cares anyway

blame those who pay for such services...

otherwise such businesses can never exist...

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Hmmmm, well all I can say is hmmmmmm. Seems someone is about to lose face if the evidence is bogus or simply being made up. So lets wait and see what else comes up as time goes on.

resigned memberti.

Hmm, also enjoying this gorgeous weather here in Thailand. Sigh, so much to see at these beaches. Talk to you all later. :D:o

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So lets wait and see what else comes up as time goes on.

Problem is, the Thai press goes nuts when something like this happens, publishing everything in lurid detail...then never follow up. Chances are if the police drop their case or the man is otherwise exhonerated, we'll never hear about it.

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