Sick tactics of Thai mafia with £200 hitmen, £11 grenades & girls sold into sex trade by dads…as innocent Brits targeted

IT’S known as the “land of smiles” with more than a million Brits visiting Thailand every year. But a dark cloud hangs over the backpacker destination as crime gangs target tourists in cheap cons and the country is dogged by claims of mafia rule. Thailand remains a tourist hotspot and backpacker favourite but beneath the surface is a web of serious organised crime Credit: Getty British backpackers Hannah Witheridge and David Miller were found dismembered on a Thai beach in 2014 Credit: EPA The Sun can today reveal the truth behind the Thai gangs who carry out £200 hits on mopeds, sell hand grenades for £11 and encourage poverty-stricken families to sell their daughters into the sex trade. One Brit claimed he was tricked out of £100,000 and suffered sinister threats after setting up business in the Asian country while an ex-drug smuggler lifted the lid on how weapons stolen from military and police armouries are sold on the streets for a few hundred pounds. Thailand has long denied it has a criminal gang problem but rumours of the Thai mafia first drew attention back in 2014 when the disfigured bodies of British backpackers David Miller, 24, and Hannah Witheridge, 23, were discovered on party island Koh Tao. At the time, local police insisted there was “100 per cent” no mafia, yet plans to raid “influential rackets and illegitimate businesses” were announced. But David’s terrified pal Sean McAnna, then 25, claimed the “Thai mafia are trying to kill me” after unknowingly meeting mobsters in a bar, who tried to pressure him to take the rap for the murders and threatened: “You die tonight.” Sean, a Scottish busker, fled from the islands fearing for his life. And since that terrifying incident more crimes linked to organised crime groups have emerged. When local taxi driver Sikharin Promcharoen, 31, was beaten-up and fatally shot six times in June, after dropping off tourists on a popular strip in Koh Samui, it was suspected to be linked to the ‘Samui taxi mafia’. The alleged killer, alongside 11 other suspects, have since been arrested and Sikharin’s family fled the island fearing ‘mafia’ retribution after receiving suspicious calls asking about their whereabouts. Police say the shooting followed a personal dispute. Now yet another mafia crackdown has since been announced by Thai authorities after they received reports of a series of safety incidents and assaults on foreign tourists at well-known holiday islands. Officials have also warned any state officials involved, turning a blind eye or facilitating offenders, would face “legal action to the fullest extent”. One man who knows Thailand’s crooked underworld all too well is Jonathan Wheeler, now 65, and living in Southampton, after spending 18 years in prison for trying to smuggle 4lb of heroin out of the country. “Thailand’s mafia is not like the Sicilian mafia, they are smaller, family mafia groups and are especially prominent on the islands,” Jonathan, who wrote memoir The Tiger Cage: 18 Years In Thai Prison, tells The Sun. “They deal in drugs, extortion, protection rackets, prostitution, it’s all there. Some work with the triad groups, like 14k, who are a more organised crime group and move drug shipments and buy and sell women for sex – many of whom are virgins.” Prior to his incarceration in 1994, Jonathan mingled among dangerous figures while coaching and fighting in Thai boxing competitions and narrowly dodged two assassination attempts from mafia groups. He says killings are mainly carried out by ‘motorcycle hitmen’, who were “10 a penny” and paid as little as £200 to take someone out. Their targets were typically rival mafia gang members and drug dealers who had encroached on another group’s turf or had an unpaid debt. “Some killings are arranged from burner phones in prison and paid for with money or a kilo of crystal meth,” Jonathan says. “If someone owes a debt, they will just shoot them, take over their contacts and begin distribution.” Nipping around on unrestricted 150CC motorbikes and scooters, meaning they accelerate quicker, Jonathan says they are “much faster than a 2,000CC bike”. Handguns are the weapon of choice for them, he claims. They ride up, shoot and escape by weaving through traffic at speed and then throw away the weapon. Jonathan claims that, in Thailand, weapons are “more easily accessible than in America”, with handguns being flogged for £330, M16 assault rifles for £500 and grenades for £11. Sean McAnna, 25, claimed he was threatened by the Thai mafia to admit to killing two British backpackers Credit: Peter Jordan – The Sun Police uncovered a massive arsenal of assault rifles, explosives and grenades in May Credit: Facebook/ThaiPoliceOfficial Some of the weapons are nicked from military and police armouries to sell on, he alleges. In the last five years, Thai officers have seized at least 51 assault rifles stolen from their arsenals. And back in May, two M16 rifles, 790 rounds of ammo, grenades, mines and nearly 5kg of explosives were retrieved after being sold to crime groups. Jonathan narrowly escaped two assassination attempts, once he was nearly rammed off the road for selling hashish on someone else’s patch. The other happened in Koh Samui after he objected to 22kilos of weed, stashed inside four bin-liners, being stored in a bungalow he was staying at. “I said, ‘Get the f*** out’, which he did,” he recalls. “He put it in another bungalow. Because I was a witness to it they didn’t want the truth coming out and sent a little guy to come kill me. “Fortunately, I was sober. It was 3am outside a bar. I saw him walk out of the shadows and pull a revolver out of his jacket.” He managed to draw attention to the shooter, stopping him in his tracks. Jonathan describes the Thai mafia gangs as “fearless” because all carry guns, adding: “Even if you’re a champion fighter, they don’t give a f*** because they can just shoot you.” Some of the killers are especially violent. One mafia member boasted to Jonathan about his bloodthirsty payback after being badly beaten-up by three men. Jonathan continues: “He caught two of them, grabbing them by the hair and shooting them in the head. It was a brutal revenge. “He claimed to have paid the police 100,000baht (£2.2k) to make the problem go away. That was the late ’80s, he told me he could help with any problem other than drugs.” Jonathan also recalls seeing the “No1 mafia boss” of Koh Samui, a man in his 70s, who always had two women in their 40s on his arm and drove around in an old buggy. Jonathan Wheeler (left) was jailed for 18 years in Thailand for smuggling heroin Credit: Supplied The martial arts expert (right) alleges to have been involved with Thai mafia members Credit: Supplied Another time, he recalled seeing another mafia man on a motorbike with a cigarette hanging out his mouth, when he hit a police officer “knocking him out”. “Nothing happened because the mafia guy paid him off,” he says. “To be able to punch a policeman you have to be very powerful.” Another of the Thai mafia’s trades is sex work. He claims poor families in the north-east are targeted and women go from “picking rice in a field to dancing on a pole and prostitution”. “Some are happy to loan their daughters for a year in exchange for a motorbike or a scooter, which costs around £800,” Jonathan says. “Most of these girls have never worn a g-string or a bra in their life before. They are available for sex and often will stay with men for multiple days at a time.” Jonathan claims that if the sex worker has a brother who is working for the gang, he “will always push her to charge more”. In addition to those trades, he says many operate extortion and protection rackets and some “higher-ups” rent out bungalows to rich tourists “with everything they want, including drugs”. Many of the most dangerous aspects, which Thai police have continued to crack down upon, will go unnoticed by tourists – but there are still pitfalls to be wary of. “For tourists, they just try to rinse them for what they can – whether it’s charging more to reach islands by boat, taxis, tuk-tuks or selling the whole spectrum including drugs,” Jonathan says. Luke, not his real name, who has spent three years living in Thailand, tells us “there’s a scammer on every corner” waiting to con tourists out of cash. He says: “It could be fake police, criminals posing as officers, to fine drunken tourists or vendors renting out faulty jet skis that break down leaving you liable to pay for ‘repairs.’” Another scam he recalled was drivers on taxi apps, like Bolt or Grab, cancelling their job and asking riders to pay in cash – only upon arrival to demand a rate as much as 10 times higher. Police officers seized £6m worth of methamphetamine pills, crystal meth and heroin in Bangkok in 2023 Credit: Reuters Rich Mason claims he is the victim of an investment scam and is now reliant on GoFundMe donations to live Credit: Supplied Brits who emigrate to Thailand face similar difficulties, according to Rich Mason, 45, from Leicestershire, who claims he was conned out of £100,000 after investing in a business and is now reliant on GoFundMe donations. He bought shares in gym firm Legacy Muscle Universe Company Limited only for the Thai owners to refuse to pay out dividends, block his phone number and try to get him deported to evade payment. “The whole thing was just a lie,” Rich tells us. “They even tried to bribe my girlfriend to turn on me and file a fake police report to get me deported to prevent them having to pay me. “She told me right away. I called them and shouted, ‘What the f*** are you playing at?’ and they hung up. They blocked me on everything soon after.” He says they claimed to be part of the Thai mafia, threatening him and also pals, telling them: “He die, he die. If I see him, I kill him.” Rich adds: “He made a lot of threats and tried bully boy and scare tactics, even telling my girlfriend if I came back I’d be in ‘big trouble.’” His situation worsened when he was near-fatally runover in March, which “smashed my leg to pieces”. He suffered broken feet, pneumonia and blood clots in his lung and leg. Rich says: “I was left for dead, I died twice and think they were hoping it would be my end so they could take my money. That’s how ruthless they are. “As a foreigner living in Thailand, you have minimal to zero rights, so you can get scammed and there’s not much you can do about it. “Don’t invest or build any business unless you have a lot of money, very good legal representation and are 100 per cent sure about it.” When contacted by The Sun, the owners of Legacy Muscle Universe denied Rich’s claims, insisting he will be paid on the one year anniversary of his investment. Rich argues this wasn’t their agreement and currently, no money has materialised. In spite of his troubles, Rich, who is still recovering in Thailand and is reliant on donations due to having no financial support, doesn’t dissuade others from visiting. But he has a strong warning, telling us: “Before everything that happened, I thought of Thailand as this dream paradise that was magical. “But if you live here, you’re in a very unstable position. You don’t have the same rights as Thai people and that dream of Thailand doesn’t last forever.” The Sun contacted the Royal Thai Government and Royal Thai Police but did not receive a response. The Tourism Authority of Thailand applauded The Sun for “shedding light on this issue” but was unable to comment further. Jonathan Wheeler’s memoir The Tiger Cage: 18 Years In Thai Prison – about his years among the Thai mafia and subsequent imprisonment for drug smuggling – is available to buy here.