Golden Triangle Digest: February 4th, 2021
Sneak peak into updates about Chuck Ditlefsen's mystery; True Crime Thailand has a Telegram group! and more.
Dear expats and fans of Thailand crime,
Before we dive in, did you see this video?
It turns out the video was 100% legit. Here’s a story from Vice (I know, I’m not always a fan, but the story checks out) that gets an interview with the dancing woman.
Moving on…
You might have missed me the past couple weeks. I'm not one to issue apologies, but I'll offer an explanation.
On January 16th, my personal Facebook was deleted from the platform. That ended in some headaches and logistical issues of getting content out there that I've since been able to solve. No sense in rehashing that.
I also was neck-deep in the story I put out last Wednesday about the case of Charles E. Ditlefsen, who was allegedly found in a Bangkok freezer in September 2016.
If you haven't read the story, take a look here. Warning, it's 15,000 words and probably needed an editor, but the questions it raises have hit the expat community hard.
Over 3,000 people have read the story since its publication last week. The original Stickman Bangkok website linked to the story in his last weekly update.
Since publication I have been contacted by a private investigator in Bangkok who offered his take on the case and experience with the suspects.
A journalist in Jakarta offered ideas on how to improve the story and perhaps get the story to American publications.
And finally, since the publication, I've been able to have a 2 hour + long phone call with the ex-girlfriend of Chuck.
What did I learn on that call?
I'm glad you asked...
Sneak Peak into Next Installment of Chuck's Story
I'll give a quick rundown of a few things I learned since publication.
The story gets more complicated. It's on good authority from the ex-girlfriend (who actually knew him since the early 1970s, but they dated 15 years) that it's likely he had a lot more money stashed away and hidden from the business.
To give you a little insight into the situation. The FBI was actually after Chuck at the time he left the USA.
What I've learned since the story came out is that he first went to Hawaii, met a woman there, and then left for Thailand. He left an autobiography and documents that were meant to be delivered to the ex-gf from the story. She is now in possession of those documents and is constructing a full timeline of events in Chuck's final years and months along with adding any and all details from those documents.
She will also be phoning Chuck's sister. You may recall that the Thai police were to fly unidentified people from the USA to Thailand in relation to the case. We think it might have been Chuck's sister, but we really don't know who those people were or if they even came, as the news just becomes dead silent after about mid-October 2016.
So the way I see it, and the ex sees it the same, and I want to be clear that these are only my opinions on the matter and nothing more until proven... I reckon Chuck didn't want to do time in a federal prison for white collar crime.
The Feds were after him for several million dollars, and it had to do with bad business dealings, but I need to get the full details — I will probably end up filing FOIA requests here for all details.
He didn't want to do the time, so disappearing was the next best thing. Thing is, according to the ex, he was more of the creative type and not the strategic type. The way everything went down, pretty much airtight, kind of made me wonder if there was somebody else who may have assisted him — like a trusted friend.
The ex told me a very old and trusted friend of his, a fairly known San Francisco attorney, also dropped off the map around 2008. She's been trying to track him down for 13 years with no luck.
There's a lot more I'm not laying out now, as I'm sorting out the details and kind of sitting on what I know, letting the facts stew a bit as the whole thing is just baffling.
But there is one that gave me chills when she told me on the phone:
The FBI went to the house that he used to own in Mill Valley, California looking for Chuck in 2018... 2 years after the discovery in the BKK freezer.
They could have just been doing their due diligence, of course. But if they thought Chuck was dead... would they be going around asking for him?
It's something I need to find out about with FOIA requests.
Now, regarding Aaron Gabel who you may recall from the story, the 30 something American with a Thai family who was busted and acquitted.
I want to find him.
I have his father's phone number and email, and I may just reach out to the father and explain the situation.
It's likely Gabel is still in Thailand, as he has a half-Thai daughter. But I doubt he'd want to talk. He's probably spooked.
What he told my private investigator contact, who is incredibly trustworthy and a known figure and has no reason to blow smoke about this, is that Aaron said he knew nothing about the body or anything else with the passport forgeries or drugs or nothing.
Funny that, though... since his prints were on the fucking plastic bag that held the dead man's frozen head!
The goal would be to find out anything he knew about Chuck or the operations of the passport forgery gang. It's a long shot, but I'm putting it out there in case anybody knows how to get in touch with Gabel.
Look, the ex-girlfriend wants closure.
And there's hundreds of people out there who are now aware of this case who want to know.
I reckon that if in fact Chuck's still alive that living this way for 13 years in hiding would be a heavy weight on his shoulders.
Other Projects & Stories
My goal is to put out a weekly newsletter to just give you insight into things I'm working on and give you an inside peak into my thoughts on different cases and stories.
I'm transitioning into doing long form original research and reports. I still do the daily crime stories of course, because I pick up a lot of interesting bits of info that way.
But I really love doing the whopper stories that go deep into a particular case and unearth new info.
Case in point: Right now I'm in contact with a group of people who have been scammed through an online dating scheme that involved a long confidence game where they were duped into putting money into an online bitcoin trading platform.
It's a hell of a story and I think it's a massive scam happening right now. Law enforcement in several countries have been alerted and I will be doing a full write up of the story.
Some of the guys involved got bilked for $100,000 USD+...
It's this kind of work that I find most rewarding as it might just save one guy from getting duped and losing it all.
I'm also looking at stories like the Kirsty Jones murder in 2000 in Chiang Mai, a look at black magic and murder in Thailand, female killers in Thailand, and a full report on the southern insurgency.
Want to interact with me and get to know my thoughts on cases and meet others into true crime in Thailand?
I set up a Telegram group where I'm on daily. There's a few fans that have joined up. It's completely free and I'm usually there to offer my thoughts on stories I'm working on and just shoot the breeze.
It's the most direct, uncensored way to get info out. No Big Tech censorship, no algorithms. Just the facts, raw and unfiltered.
If you're on Telegram, you can join by clicking the button below:
There's a lot more I'm working on, and I'll probably save that for my update next week.
I want to get on a regular weekly schedule for writing these updates. Let's call it Thursday you can expect these newsletter updates.
And then the longer deep dives will come out when they're ready. Some involve a lot of research and it's hard to do one on a weekly basis. But I might put out more reasonable 2,000 - 3,000 word articles on stories I'm interested in weekly, along with doing the big lunker 10,000+ word deep dives.
Well, that's it for now.
Appreciate all of your comments and feedback.
If there's anything you'd like to share privately, you can email me at truecrimethailand@gmail.com
If you haven’t subscribed to this newsletter yet, you can do so here:
Hope to see you on the Telegram group,
True Crime Thailand
PS, if you wanted a T-shirt or mug, they're coming.