Crazy Phil Laak story with Pics

[bustedromo]

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@bustedromo: Why don't you pick up the phone and ask?

I'm not defending anybody here but unless you know the seedy side of Thailand it's tough to put certain aspects into perspective. I keep an ear to the expat community in Thailand so I hear all kinds of crazy stuff.

People ripping each other off is just something that comes with the territory. If I had a nickle for every sob story I've heard about some farang being taken by a girl, some farang getting ripped off by his Thai business partner, etc, etc. I would have . . . a hell of a lot of nickles.

Thailand's the kind of place where I can walk down some of the worst parts of Bangkok and not feel even the slightest threat to my safety. But the second someone starts talking to you, you better have both hands on your wallet. It's like Vegas on crack in terms of the number of ways people want to help you part with your money.

And the best (or worst) part is, most people do it willingly like Phil is accused of doing. You don't need to put a gun to your head when a smile and an appeal to one of your base emotions (fear, greed, or lust) will have you forking it over and thanking them for the experience.

That's one of the reasons Tom's story doesn't seem so outlandish to me. If this was any other guy than Phil Laak I would believe it in a heartbeat. Why? Because this isn't even the craziest stuff I've heard. This is medium on the crazy scale.

And, again, not to defend Tom here but I don't think Tom ever claimed to ever have the intention to go through with it.

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You make a very good point, one which I did consider in my analysis. Namely, that Tom Grant saw Laak as this rich kid white meat turkey who thought it would be way cool to smuggle some horse and so pulled the standard on him.

However, Grant has admitted that he was friends with the hit man Laak hired to kill him. Now maybe Laak got this hit man's name through Grant somehow, but more likely this was an operator Laak knew or found out about through other channels. So, this blemishes Grant's character further.

I have to admit that looking at his photo he looks like a well-meaning family man, perhaps a bit more knowledgeable of the realities of the underbelly than he would have been had he stayed in America.

The easiest guess is that Laak is one of these typical rich kid clowns that I had the misfortune of being around in college: the type who has no ambition and is bored with it all and pisses Daddy and Mommy's money away as they dabble in kinky sex, drugs, and crime. For these guys, putting a hit out on someone is just like another Tarantino flick. Less Than Zero and all that.

However, we have to consider Laak's accomplishments in backgammon and poker. Clearly, that took some hard work and an appreciation for reality. So, it's tough to figure Laak. Is he just another rich doofus playing at life who gets in over his head ? Or does he possess a brilliant and cunning criminal mind and the lack of ethics to deploy it ?

Why don't I phone up Tom Grant ? Because I strictly don't get involved in any manner with any of these types of people in real life, wouldn't be good for my career or my familiy. E-mail and forums under aliases is as far as I go.