Man wanted for torture and kidnap who turned up in Bangkok bar may be extradited from Thailand
INTERNATIONAL fugitive Guido Eglitis - who is wanted on kidnapping and torture charges - may be extradited to Queensland after he was seen in a Bangkok bar.
AN international swindler and fugitive wanted in Australia for torture and kidnap charges may be extradited back from Thailand after he was spotted this week drinking in a Bangkok bar.
Guido James Eglitis, who is suspected of having committed crimes over decades in several countries, was photographed in the N’Joy Bar on Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Road entertainment strip on Monday.
The 68-year-old, who fled Australia in 2007 when he was due to stand trial for kidnapping, tying up, torturing and robbing a man in Brisbane, was seen drinking at several bars in the notorious nightclub area last weekend.
Cambodian authorities released Eglitis from Siem Reap provincial prison, which is near the World heritage Angkor Wat monument, last week and deported him to Thailand.
Eglitis had been arrested at Siem Reap in October 2015 for assaulting a British national named David Scotcher during a home invasion.
Scotcher subsequently fled Cambodia and Eglitis was jailed for up to a year.
He was also under investigation for links to the suspicious death of a Canadian journalist and filmmaker Dave Walker, whose decomposed body was found in the Angkor Wat temple complex in 2014.
Eglitis allegedly posed as a private investigator names James An who purportedly was helping Cambodian police on the Walker case.
Queensland Police told news.com.au that it was “continuing to make inquiries into the possible extradition of a 68-year-old man in relation to a deprivation of liberty investigation in South Brisbane in 2007”.
Eglitis, who was born in Germany but settled in Warrnambool in Victoria, served for 16 years in the Royal Australian Navy before embarking on a career as a fraudster and trading scam artist.
Eglitis is said to have made millions in trading scams dubbed “boiler room” frauds.
He was sentenced to four years in Terminal Island prison in Los Angeles for share trading fraud in the late 1980s.
A chapter of the Australian book “Scams and Swindlers”, about fraud investigated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, was devoted to Eglitis and his investment scams.
The charges for which Queensland Police are applying to extradite Eglitis back from Thailand arose when he allegedly posed as an Australian federal Police officer and kidnapped Brisbane man Ronald Ryton-Benson.
While in the car park of the Pacific Gold Club at Carindale in Brisbane’s east, Eglitis allegedly handcuffed Mr Ryton-Benson and forced him into a van.
The man was then driven to a house, tied up and Eglitis demanded money while wielding an extendible baton.
On bail when he was ordered to stand trial, Eglitis fled the country.
He is believed to have visited China and Thailand before departing to Cambodia, where he told other expatriates that he was working as an investigator for a Khmer Police General.
Canadian Dave Walker, who was in Cambodia making a film about a former Khmer Rouge soldier, vanished from a Siem reap guesthouse on February 14, 2014.
Walker’s heavily decomposed remains were found in early May that year and Eglitis came forward saying he was helping Cambodian authorities investigate what is believed to have been murder.
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