The widow of an accused British “boiler room” gangster shot dead in broad daylight near Pattaya is calling for the extradition to Thailand of a suspect falsely claimed to have been arrested in Cambodia last week.
Somporn Kenway, whose British husband Tony, 39, was killed as he sat in his red Porsche Cayenne outside the Sanit Sports Club in Pong Sub-district Jan. 24, went to Nongprue Police Station Feb. 10 to push for the extradition of Toby James Nelham, 44, who reportedly was arrested in Sihanoukville and was to be handed over to Thai police at the Cambodian border Feb. 11.
The report, printed by both English- and Thai-language media, was false.
The Cambodia Daily reported Feb. 13 that Nelham has not been arrested nor even located, quoting both Sihanoukville police and the Interior Ministry.
Somporn believed that the United Kingdom had blocked Cambodia from extraditing Nelham to Thailand, due to it having the death penalty. She claimed the Briton had confessed and was slandering her late husband with allegations about illegal activity. Reporters were not allowed into her meeting with Nongprue police.
Nelham is accused of hiring Briton Miles Dicken Turner, 24, and South African Abel Bonito Caldeira, 28, to kill Kenway after a falling out over their joint boiler room operation that swindled people in the U.K. and Australia out of their life savings through bogus investments.
Nelham allegedly owed Kenway 8 million baht and, when Nelham didn’t pay, Kenway ratted him out to police and tried to have him arrested. Nelham fled to Cambodia where he reportedly set up a similar call center operation which later failed, another thing for which he blamed Kenway.
Turner and Caldeira fled to Cambodia through a Trat province border crossing together Jan. 24 and remain at large.
Sihanoukville police released photos of the two men and issued a public call to find them, but Nop Sambo, deputy Sihanoukville immigration police chief, said authorities remained unsure of their whereabouts.
“We have been searching for them and also investigating, but we still don’t know if they were in our area,” he told the Cambodia Daily.
No mention was made of any manhunt for Nelham and Chuon Narin, the Sihanoukville provincial police chief, told the paper there had been no arrests fitting his description.
Kenway’s wife, nicknamed “Paris”, reportedly was oblivious to all her husband’s nefarious businesses, even though he supposedly owned five properties and several expensive imported sports cars. She insists he was simply the owner of a Jomtien Beach web design firm.
