U.S.

Extradition Lawyers

Thursday, July 21, 2011

www.McNabbAssociates.com

Found Within the United States and in Connection with an Individual's Request for Extradition Every United States extradition treaty negotiated after 1884 contains a provision permitting the United States to seize and surrender evidence found in the possession of the fugitive criminal at the time of his or her arrest, to be delivered over to the requesting country. Recent treaties additionally permit: 1) the surrender of such fruits and evidence even if extradition cannot be effected because of the death, escape, and, in some instances, disappearance of the requested individual; 2) the deferral of surrender of articles needed as evidence in a proceeding in the requested country; and 3) requiring the return of such articles when they are no longer needed in the requesting country. To find additional global criminal news, please read The Global Criminal Defense Daily. Douglas McNabb and other members of the U.S. law firm practice and write extensively on matters involving Federal Criminal Defense, INTERPOL Red Notice Removal, International Extradition and OFAC SDN List Removal. The author of this blog is Douglas McNabb. Please feel free to contact him directly at mcnabb@mcnabbassociates.com or at one of the offices listed above.

Extradition Treaty Law and Procedure - Part 40 Millions of tourists, most of them and Procedure presumably without criminal records, travel to Thailand every Seizure and Surrender of year, drawn by the good food, - Part 41 Evidence or Fruits of Offense lively night life and crystal waters.
McNabb Associates, P.C. (U.S. Extradition Attorneys)
Submitted at 9:19 AM July 21, 2011

McNabb Associates, P.C. (U.S. Extradition Attorneys)

Submitted at 9:27 AM July 21, 2011

Effect of Statute of Limitations Generally, most United States extradition treaties address the effect of statute of limitations on the extraditability of an individual sought by another country. To find additional global criminal news, please read The Global Criminal Defense Daily. Douglas McNabb and other members of the U.S. law firm practice and write extensively on matters involving Federal Criminal Defense, INTERPOL Red Notice Removal, International Extradition and OFAC SDN List Removal. The author of this blog is Douglas McNabb. Please feel free to contact him directly at mcnabb@mcnabbassociates.com or at one of the offices listed above.

Thailand's Irresistible Attraction for Fugitives

McNabb Associates, P.C. (U.S. Extradition Attorneys)
Submitted at 10:57 AM July 21, 2011

Extradition Treaty Law

Give me your drug dealers, your money launderers, your felons on the lam yearning to breathe free. ... Thailand has never advertised itself as a beacon for fugitives, but the worlds wretched refuse, to tweak the noble words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, seem to show up here in droves.

Fugitives come for the same reasons- plus the prospect, for some, of outliving a statute of limitations. Thailand has traditionally been one of the top source countries for extradition of criminals to the U.S., reads a March 2009 cable from the U.S. Embassy obtained by WikiLeaks. The cable lists the wide variety of fugitives nabbed in Thailand over the years: child molesters, narcotics traffickers, money launderers and cybercriminals, among others. The cable, which was sent from the embassy in Bangkok, counts 135 defendants extradited from Thailand to the United States in the past three decades and dozens more people directly deported. But a scan of recent headlines in Thailand suggests that the U.S. fugitives are but a footnote on a long rap sheet of globe-trotting felons on the loose. In the past two years, the news media here have reported the arrest in Thailand of Germans wanted for fraud and tax evasion; a man suspected of being a South Korean mafia boss; Czech bank robbers convicted of stealing several million euros (and who fled to Thailand after jumping bail while their case was under appeal); Pakistani passport forgers; a convicted Filipino murderer who was the most wanted man in the Philippines but worked in Bangkok as a jeweler; a French drug trafficker who thought he could elude the police by using his brothers passport; the head of

U.S. Extradition Lawyers

Japans second-largest organized crime syndicate; an Israeli fugitive convicted of double murder in Belgium and traveling on a forged Maldives passport; an Indian man wanted for sending a bevy of fraudulent spam; an Australian suspected of murdering a family of three; and a seemingly countless number of pedophiles. Add to the list Viktor Bout, suspected of being an international arms dealer, who was extradited to the United States in November after a protracted legal battle in Thailand. Many criminals seem to find refuge in Pattaya, the seedy seaside resort southeast of Bangkok known for its vast stretches of girly bars. A separate U.S. cable from 2005 said U.S. fugitives had taken up residence in Pattaya over the years, along with people who should be getting treatment for mental illness, but are not. Thailands freewheeling society, its pliant law enforcement and a joie de vivre at budget prices are the powerful magnets for the dregs of many countries, says John Burdett, a British author of crime novels set in Thailand that delve into the countrys underworld. There are a number of minor reasons and one very major one why the jet-setting underground would find Thailand irresistible, Mr. Burdett said in an e-mail. The minor ones would include guns, girls, gambling, ganja and gorgeous beaches, especially for those recently released from confinement. But what makes Thailand especially attractive, Mr. Burdett said, is the international reputation, whether deserved or not, of a compliant and bribable police force. Thailands leaders have long acknowledged that there are bad apples some would say orchards of bad apples among the police. Lt. Gen. Wiboon Bangthamai, the head of the countrys immigration

Thursday, July 21, 2011

police, said in an interview that officials at remote border posts had been known to suffer inexplicable computer troubles when cash-rich people sought to cross Thai borders illegally. Officers at small border checkpoints would break the computers and let them in, General Wiboon said. The U.S. cables point to weak law enforcement, a country preoccupied with political problems and inconvenient geography. Thailands borders are long and extremely porous and the country is therefore vulnerable to international criminal elements of all kinds, said the cable from 2009. Another reason Thailand has struggled to contain its fugitive problem is that stamping out what makes the country attractive for the most-wanted might crimp the billion-dollar business of hosting all those tourists without criminal records. Thailands anything-goes ethos, most recently spotlighted in the Hollywood hit The Hangover Part II, is coupled with a deepseated hospitality that often seems blind to a foreigners background and appearance. Bangkoks red-light districts crawl with glassy-eyed, beerswilling foreigners who might not look out of place on the mostwanted poster on a post office wall. But as one Thai government adviser noted, it can be hard to distinguish between the felons and the investment bankers on vacation. (In some cases, presumably, they could be one and the same.) The immigration department says it is overhauling its computer systems in the next two months, an upgrade that will combine all information about foreigners who enter and exit Thailand. As it stands now, data from the countrys many land crossings are stored separately from information about the arrivals and departures at international airports.

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Fugitives will find it hard to get in, said Maj. Gen. Manoo Mekmok, the commander of the immigration departments investigation and interrogation division. Put simply, many will have to change their destination. Yet analysts of Thailands immigration system say the changes are unlikely to purge Thailand of foreign riffraff. What was supposed to be a command center for tracking fugitives at a government building in Bangkok was dark, musty and empty on a recent visit, inactive because of a lack of funds, according to the staff. And even in highly publicized cases, suspects in Thailand sometimes just disappear. In May, a man from the United Arab Emirates was charged with trafficking endangered animals after being arrested at Bangkoks main airport with four baby leopards, a bear cub and two tiny monkeys. The case was front-page news in Thailand in part because of the novelty of trying to smuggle such a large menagerie through airport security. But two weeks later, the police, without providing further details, said the suspect had missed his court date and fled the country. This article was written by Thomas Fuller and published by the New York Times on July 20, 2011. To find additional global criminal news, please read The Global Criminal Defense Daily. Douglas McNabb and other members of the U.S. law firm practice and write extensively on matters involving Federal Criminal Defense, INTERPOL Red Notice Removal, International Extradition and OFAC SDN List Removal. The author of this blog is Douglas McNabb. Please feel free to contact him directly at mcnabb@mcnabbassociates.com or at one of the offices listed above.