Crazy Phil Laak story with Pics

[bustedromo]

[ QUOTE ]
@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.

[TheRanch]

In a recent interview, Phil Laak tells a story about a trip to Vietnam (may have been Thailand)...Laak says that he was being hustled for 45 cents...Laak did not feel he owed the money and that the guy knew it was a blatant extortion....Laak decide that he was never going to pay the guy the 45 cents...Laak realized that he was in a bad spot because it was 3 o'clock in the morning on a desolate beach and the guy had friends while Laak was alone...Laak decided to run and hide rather than pay the money...he was chased but got away...Laak said that it was not smart to potentially risk his well being but he was dead set against getting ripped off....Laak said during that period he was a "manic nutball"..(this interview was in the "Under The Gun" promo magazine that was handed out at WSOP expo)

I thought that story was very telling about Laak's mindset at the time. He was willing to risk getting hurt or killed over a measly 45 cents !!! Is it that much of a stretch to think he would put a hit on someone over a much larger "perceived" rip off attempt ?? To him it was about being "right" and the consequences did not really matter.

[Klonged Again]

Pattaya a sleepy fishing village beside the Andaman sea....


I think I should provide a better picture of what Pattaya is like. Gangsters, hookers, junkies and drunks.....and those are the nicer folk you'll meet here !!

One of the local go-go bars was going to feed some christians to some lions as an interlude between dancers. They couldn't go ahead because firstly they couldn't find any christians, and secondly because the punters complained that a complete devouring kept the girls off-stage for too long !!

Here's a story that shows it's easy for a guy to feel cut up about a bargirl. Hit the link and scroll down to the story 'Four young women arrested for a grisly murder'
http://www.pattayamail.com/563/news.shtml Not bad work for a bunch of teenage girls.

A farang (westerner) leaps out of his room into the wild blue yonder every week or so. In some cases the unfortunate farang is propelled rather than self launched, but no investigation ever takes place. Don't hang too much washing over your balcony in these parts, some flapping farang might try to grab it during his descent.
Broken-hearted Englishman falls to death http://www.pattayamail.com/498/news.shtml

Then again some Thai ladies ain't so wonderful. I mean it's ok to get the hillbilly in-laws to cut up the English Squire husband and barbeque him, but there's no mention of Tabasco or Steak sauce. No wonder the Tigers didn't want to eat the overdone Brit.

" First they tried to shoot him with an ancient flintlock musket. When that misfired they attacked him with clubs and an iron bar. When he was finally dead, Mr Charnaud’s body was dismembered and cooked on a charcoal fire before being scattered across the Kaeng Krajan National Park, one of the last refuges of the Thai tiger.".... more

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...icle697142.ece

Keeping in mind that Pattaya only has a population of somewhere near 100,000 here are a couple of news sites with loads of similar stories http://www.pattayacitynews.net/news_update.html

http://www.pattayapeople.com/

[Billman]

[ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, not trying to defend Tom but sort of explain Thailand. Pattaya is up there on the list of a-hole landing spots. You can't live in places like Phuket or Pattaya and not know most of the expats down there. Some folks are just fun loving folks who decided to set up shop in paradise but there's also a large community of guys one step ahead of the law from the US, UK, Germany, Australia and a bunch of other places.

Some new guy starts coming in the bars and he dodges a few questions and pretty soon everybody has theories on what he's running from. I have a buddy who owns a place down in Phuket and he's got the lowdown on every farang down there. And yeah, a lot of these folks are bad people.

Now, the thing I feel missed in the translation is that not only did Tom know the hitman but Phil must have known him too. You don't just call up the operator and ask for Hitman in the phonebook. That means the guy was probably known around the expat community. He was probably a regular in the bars or may have even owned his own bar.

BTW, I don't think he could stay in the US as I believe he's English.

And yes, knowing hitmen does tarnish one's reputation but when everyone you know also knows him . . . such is life, right?

[Billman]

Yeah, thanks Klonged Again. I've spent most of my travels in BKK and Phuket. I haven't ventured down to Pattaya. Not my kind of scene but I may stop in for a day or two on a future trip just to see it.

I've been keeping it pretty light but KA is dead on. Go read some of those links. Some of the worst of the worst end up in Pattaya. And for whatever reason, nearly all of the stories I hear of farangs taking a skydive out of a hotel window are down in Pattaya.

[bustedromo]

After reading The Pattaya Mail for an hour I see what you mean. So many bizarre "suicides" of ex-pats (plastic bag over head, hands tied behind back). Thai brides offing their husbands (estranged or not). Crazy stuff.

When In Rome ...

However, Laak was in the States when half of the allegations occurred. If Laak had been in Thailand the entire time, subject to the same corrupt laws, police, and social culture as everyone else, and he had set up a drug deal, got burned out of cash, set up a hit, got burned out of cash again, then it's just another boring story that wouldn't even make The Pattaya Mail.

But Laak pulled half this crap while he was inside the U.S., making him subject to U.S. laws, and placing his actions within the American social context. If this stuff is true, I can't forgive this guy. I have friends who have had family members lives destroyed (as in dead) by heroin addiction and drug dealers.

Laak looks more and more to me like one of these characters out of Less Than Zero. If any of this is true, I hope he goes down big-time, Tilly dumps him, no sponsorship, no more TV shows, etc. Plus, I'm sick of his histrionic attention-whoring antics. What a boring clown.

[DARTHTATER]

it is spelled nunce...nonce

[budblown]

A few things strike me as strange about this whole thing.

First - why is this Tom guy going after the guy he stole money from? Isn't that the dumbest thing you can do? So what if the guy hired someone to kill you - you started it by stealing his F-ing money.

Second - If Laak did try and have him killed why would you show up at the convention? Wouldn't you rather have Laak thinking you are dead so that he doesn't get another hitman? (presuming Laak did hire the first hitman to begin with)

Third - This is all over a drug deal that Tom made go bad because he stole money (Tom admits to that). If you steal 10k worth of wholesale black tar heroin (street value about 10x that amount maybe more) do you think that the guy is just going to write it off as a loss? Are you retarded? In my opinion Tom you are an idiot and deserve a swift kick in the nuts for the 30 minutes of my life I will never get back after all this.

I just want to know how Tom can justify that Phil Laak is the "bad guy" here when Tom was the one that screwed Laak?

[suzzer99]

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I thought that story was very telling about Laak's mindset at the time. He was willing to risk getting hurt or killed over a measly 45 cents !!!

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It sounds like a lot more when you say 10,000 Dong.

[suzzer99]

Sounds to me like these guys screwed Phil at least twice already, although he had his hands dirty as hell both times, now they're trying to do it again. If he had any sense he would just have paid the guy off. Makes me think maybe he isn't that guilty.

Fascinating stuff.