April 26, 2023 • 34 mins
We explore the mysterious deaths of two foreigners on the island. In 2012, a motorbike accident raises new questions about police investigations on the island. Then, in 2013, a successful bar owner is found dead with the police claiming it was a heart attack, but the evidence to support this claim is thin. Join us as we uncover the dark secrets of Koh Tao and the possible connection between these two deaths.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
On August thirtieth, twenty twenty twelve, the body of Ben
Harrington was found lifeless and contorted lying next to a
crashed motorbike. Police arrived on the scene and determined the
thirty two year old British backpacker had crashed into an
electricity pylon during the nighttime moped ride. His face was
(00:22):
looking towards his back. Authorities ask Mark Harrington to identify
the body. Mark confirmed it was his brother Ben. The
pair had been on holiday together in Katao. Officials quickly
concluded that the cause of death was a broken knack
due to a motor collision, but Patricia Harrington, Ben's mother
(00:43):
has questions was it an accident, a mugging gone wrong,
or something more nefarious. Ten years later, Patricia Harrington is
still hoping for a proper investigation into the death of
her son. Welcome to Death Island, a production of KT's
Studios and iHeartRadio, Episode six the cases of Ben Harrington
(01:08):
and Tony Lotus.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm Connor Powell, an investigative journalist at KAT Studios with
Stephanie Lydecker, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew Arnow and Jeff Shane. Last episode,
we were covering the cases of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller,
and we will get back to them as mentioned, we're
hoping to get more information about their autopsies and the
DNA evidence, but we're going to turn our attention in
(01:33):
this episode to a different suspicious case. In August of
twenty twelve, Ben Harrington was on a much needed holiday
with his brother and friend. The thirty two year old
IT consultant was staying at a villa on Sorry Beach.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Just after midnight, Ben allegedly crashed into an electrical poll
and died. The police ruled his death in accident and
said Ben died of a broken neck, but when his
family began asking questions and looking closer at his death,
it became clear that this accident was not so cut
and dry.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
For starters, There's no evidence Ben's body had any break
in the neck area, which would imply a broken neck.
His wallet and personal belongings were also missing. If he
had died alone on the road, wouldn't they probably still
be there. His mother also heard rumors that muggers used
wires to trip up motorcyclists so they could steal from them.
So the question is is did Ben become the casualty
(02:27):
of this petty crime.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
A pattern's beginning to emerge. Right A backpacker gets drawn
to a paradise and meets a tragic end, only for
the authorities to not appear to conduct a proper investigation
into their death. Ben was only thirty two when he
arrived on Kata with his brother Mark and another friend.
According to Mark, they were on holiday and looking forward
(02:48):
to days of partying and exploring the island.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
On the night of August twenty ninth, Ben wanted to
keep the party going and he wanted to head downtown.
He asked his brother Mark if he wanted to join him,
but Mark passed, so Ben walked down the steps to
his ren and moped, hopped on it, and drove off.
The lights dimmed on the moped as Ben drove into
the night. That was the last time Mark saw his
brother alive.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Mark went to the morgue to identify his brother's body.
According to their mother, Patricia, she was told by the
Thai authorities that the cause of her son's death was
a broken neck. They told her they knew his neck
was broken because his head was facing the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Ti authorities wanted to cremate Ben's body, but the next
day Patricia, Ben's mom, called the Home office in the
UK to get them to stop the cremation. Patricia flew
Ben's body home and a post mortem exam done in
the UK revealed that Ben had a lot of broken bones,
but his neck wasn't one of them. The UK coroner
ruled that Ben died of a transsected orda, a rupture
(03:52):
of the body's largest artery, but not a broken neck.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
The coroner also stated he wouldn't record the death as
an accident because he there wasn't sufficient evidence to support
that theory. It was definitely a tragedy, clearly a collision
of some kind. But now Patricia had more questions than
answers about how Ben died. Was it an accident, was
it a mugging gone wrong? Or was it something even
more nefarious.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Ben's mother, Patricia had heard about several robberies happening in
Thailand involving motorbikes. Connor spoke with Sue Buchanan, an author
and journalists who lived on Thailand for years. She wrote
the book The Curse of the Turtle, The True Story
of Thailand's backpacker murders.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
I mean I heard about Ben. I heard down that
back road where Ben had his accident. There was a
couple of ties. You used to put like a trip
wire across the road, and that's really the only road
that you could get any kind of speed up on,
So they just put a trip wire there, and quite often,
you know, people would fall off their bike and they
just robed them.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
The tai police concluded Ben's death was an accident, likely
caused by drunk driving. His watch and while it were
both missing, and this kind of robbery was a very
common occurrence Uncle Tow in twenty twelve, Like.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
People are falling off motorbikes all the time. People are
you know, pissing the ties off and ending up dead
all the time. So it kind of creeps up on you.
You just get used to it. It's quite normal. I
went to nine funerals in nine weeks. Once I look
back and think, how did that possibly become normal to me?
Speaker 5 (05:27):
But it did. It was just normal. It was just
a normal part of living there.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Did Ben anger the wrong local Uncle Tow or cross
paths with the mafia? Or was his death an accident.
Sky News correspondent Jonathan Samuel's also looked into Ben Harrington's case.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
The accident on the moped, was there a trip wire?
I mean, his parents seemed to think that he was
robbed and maybe had been pushed off of the moped,
but there was just no proper investigation, or certainly that's
what that's what the parents say so many instance. I mean,
it's very frustrating because you don't necessarily whether the police
are covering things up or whether they're just very amateurish.
(06:09):
They've not had the training, they haven't got the equipment,
they haven't got the manpower, so they sort of make
something up in order to cover their tracks.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Here's Connor and Andrew.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, this is one of those things where it's very
possible that it was a motorcycle accident. Maybe even he
was drunk or just took a turn too fast. I mean,
that's totally plausible. It's also possible that in Thailand and
in a lot of other countries that there are people
who prey on the people who rent these motorcycles and
(06:40):
mopeds and they set up traps with the intention of
robbing them. This happens, it's there's stories about this, and
maybe his a motorcycle accident was the result of this.
Potential mugging. But if that's the case, then it's clear
that the police didn't do much of an investigation into
who might have caused it.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Right, And why would the police want to cover up
the death of a tourist. You know, if it's an accident,
it makes a lot more sense to just say, hey,
it was an accident and here's what happened. Sue started
to dig in into all of these mysterious deaths, and
this was around twenty thirteen at.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
This point when Ben dies. Thailand is a backpacking haven.
People are coming from all over the world for many
years at this point, but it also a place was,
you know, where tourists gather. There's always scams, and there's
always petty theft and things like that, and this is
one of those cases that it might have just have
been a petty theft that went really wrong. But tay
police on Kotal don't appear to have taken it at
(07:35):
all serious as the result of a crime gone wrong.
They just sort of dismissed it as, oh, it was
an accident. The westerner, the tourist was being reckless and
never mind, we're not going to look any further.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
But why not just say, hey, he got in an
accident and something sliced his aorta. Instead they said, oh,
he broke his neck his head was facing the wrong direction.
I mean, that's a really dramatic thing to just make up.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And this is part of the pattern, right, This is
what we're seeing time and time again, which is that
there are these deaths and there's just no investigation, and
anytime that there's the potential that a local type person
could be involved in the murder, the investigation is just
immediately pushed to the side, and the tourist, the westerner,
the visitor is immediately blamed or sort of written off
(08:23):
as their death is their own fault.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Soup Buchanan started investigating the mysterious deaths I'm Catao in
twenty thirteen. Early on, she began to notice a pattern.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
I mean, occasionally someone would get shot or murdered and
I'd go down and have a look, but I wasn't
really reporting on it. So it's only when I started
this so many times my own online publication in twenty
thirteen that I started to cover those kind of stories.
So we launched in July twenty thirteen, and a couple
of things that did happen I put in the paper
and I was immediately told to take them out.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
So you can't. You can't cover that story.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Like there's jets muffia on coasts tom who were quite
often killing each other and scamming tourists.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
And there was a couple of island tours.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
That you know, they'd come screaming across the hill in
four wheel drives and skid off the path and you know,
pile the four wheel drive into someone's house and a
couple of tourist would die. And there was another guy
who got more by an elephant when an elephant went
ballistic on a tour. And I used to go and
cover those things and put them in the paper, and
I just get a phone call.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Then you got to take it out. You can't. You
can't put that in there.
Speaker 7 (09:26):
Who was calling you, well.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Various different people, really my business partner who was quite
well connected, and people I've been friends with for a
long time. And so someone would just tell someone to
call me and just take it out.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
So I just take it out. I just delete it.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
Imquied threats or was it like you would be smart
not to print this.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
No, it's like, unless you want trouble or get that
out of your paper, like, don't report on anything this
family do.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
And I'm like, all right, fine, And if I.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Ever wanted to report on stuff like that, I would
wait until it was in someone else's newspaper and then
rewrite the article from there newspaper because once it was
broken in like one of the other papers, then it
was safe for me to report on it.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
That was like the unwritten rule.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Really, Sue turned a blind eye to stories about the
Katao mafia in the beginning, but she continued reporting on
other crimes. Sue's reporting eventually led to a search warrant
being issued for her arrest. Connor and Stephanie spoke with
Sue about this.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
So I wrote this story about a girl who was raped,
They said, I made the story up, so they try
and do me for computer crimes, fake news, bringing Thailand
into disrepute and inciting national panic. Bearing in mind, when
I wrote this story, I was in the UK, my
server was in Singapore, and my company's registered in the Philippines.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
So have I committed a time in a crime entire?
I wasn't in Thailand.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
The story was uploaded to a server in Singapore from
the UK and the Saumuvie Times company was registered in
the Philippines and the story was so untrue they sent
five police officers over from Thailand to get the T
shirt from the rape victim and had the DNA on
it for a climate didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
We wanted to find out more about the Computer Crimes
Act in Thailand and how it's being used by authorities
to silence journalists. Ian Yarwood is a lawyer and activist
who's researched the mysterious deaths on Katao. Here he is
speaking with Connor.
Speaker 8 (11:18):
There's no real free speech in Thailand. People are routinely
jailed for criminal defamation and breaches of the Computer Crimes Act,
and also they've got majesty laws and people have been
thrown in jail for criticizing the King's dog. I mean,
that's how ridiculous it becomes, and people get thrown in prison.
(11:39):
I mean sometimes with things like The's someone might criticize
a certain institution that because it may have the name
royal attached to it. They'll say, oh, that's actually an
extension of the list law and you can go to
jail for that. So it's actually a completely different world
if you come from place like Australia or the US.
(12:02):
In Thailand, there's no real free speech. And with the
Computer Crimes Act, it's actually extremely badly written. It's been
rewritten every now and then that it's written in very
vague language.
Speaker 9 (12:13):
You know.
Speaker 8 (12:13):
The language in the Computer Crimes Act was along the
line of it's an offense to put something into a
computer that could harm someone else. And the idea of
that initially was you shouldn't have viruses, so you shouldn't
be sending viruses to other people. But then some smart
or devious people in the police force and the legal
(12:36):
profession said, oh, hang on, all something dangerous that could
actually mean if you write something critical. So it was
used then to extend to defamation that even though they
had their own criminal defamation laws, they thought, oh, well,
you use the Computer Crimes Act and that very penalties
of up to five years in prison.
Speaker 10 (12:54):
So it was a very.
Speaker 8 (12:55):
Badly written law, and then people would interpret it extremely widely.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
If you combine in a judicial system that is chaotic
and sort of disorganized and without precedent, along with a
corrupt police force, yeah, I mean, is that sort of
the root cause of a lot of the problems on
a place like hotel or does it go deeper.
Speaker 8 (13:15):
Yeah, well that's a big part of it.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
But why would Thai authorities want to silence journalists reporting
on crimes. Jonathan Samuels thinks it all comes down to tourism.
Speaker 11 (13:26):
Tourism is so important to Thailand. I'm hugely important, and
I think the last thing the Thai government wants are
these sort of stories going around the world, and they
will do almost anything it takes to make sure they
don't and to try and sort of wrap things up.
It's about protecting their tourism industry and the huge amount
of money brings in.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Connor spoke with Sam Gruber about tourism and the Thai
government as well. Sam is a former journalist and entrepreneur
in Thailand.
Speaker 7 (13:56):
When you step back and look at everything you know
about Kotel, why have authorities there not taken steps to
launch proper investigations to try to change the narrative of
the island. I mean, it is a massive money maker,
it's a popular destination. It's internationals, not just Brits. There's
people from all over the world. And yet if the
(14:17):
Thai government type police took investigations just a little bit serious.
Don't you think you could turn the narrative the reputation
of the island very quickly.
Speaker 10 (14:25):
By our culture and by our understanding is But the
type people they see completely different. What they see is
they had the business, they build it up, they want
to make money, and then these wisterners come here drunk,
reckless or whatever, and they don't take care of themselves,
and then they get themselves into trouble and something happens,
and then the media coming from all over the world
(14:47):
and start to cry foul play, and actually they are
disturbing their piece. It's the other way around. The type
people say it's us before in us just simply not
comprehending that it was the own fault. Everybody who goes
there and throws all all warnings overboard about security, about
how to behave in Thai culture, not to run top less.
(15:10):
It's a conservative country still yet and the type people
they they blame us. Actually, when I go to Kotau
and I listen to the people, they say, Okay, Hannah
and David, who were clearly murdered, those are the two
the only ones confirmed having been murdered. All the others.
(15:31):
They always found another explanations over those reckless medication used,
drug use or jumping from from dj towers into the pool.
There was always an explanation. It was always the fault
of the of the victims. But to cut a long
story short, nothing really changed. It's still in the hands
(15:53):
of the Kotau people, the ties. They run it their way.
They don't want us to interfere, and that's that's the way.
That's the way it stays. We cannot be scared to
the end of our days because normal type people in
the normal Kotao people there are good guys. You go
there and you have fun and nothing happens to you.
So clear these through some cases, bring transparency, be nice
(16:17):
to the parents of victims. That's all I'm asking for,
and then we can move on. What you need is
a police force that earns the description. You need people there.
You need a forensic examination if something happens, which is
clear and transparent and credible, and then you can avoid
(16:37):
a lot of trouble coming up, a lot of rumors
which is so poisonous and so paid for the reputation
of hold. Thailand is a tourist destination. We all suffer.
I'm running my hotel, everybody suffering when these reports go out.
None of us is happy, and we don't want to
blame local mafia whatever. That doesn't help us. We want
the police please find out, that's your job, what happened,
(16:59):
and make it credible that the people at least they
get the answers they deserve.
Speaker 7 (17:04):
Do you have any hope that things could change?
Speaker 10 (17:07):
I think only when these people who are behind some
mysterious things, when they learn that their actions they have consequences,
and the consequences are when they get everything gets into
the public and the tourist start up coming again, because
then the others we might also be turning against him
and say stop it because you're also interfering in our
(17:30):
business vid your behavior. But without a minimum of transparency
to how or Thailand will not proceed into a better
touristic future. That's the way I see it.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. As we dig deeper, find even more mysterious
deaths on pTau.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
So tourists are dying, and the local authorities on Kotel
seemed to be covering it up at worst and at
best doing a lackluster job in investigating these mysterious deaths. Now,
to understand why the authorities have gone to such links
to try to protect the tourism industry on Kotau, we
need to look at the story of Anthony Cardulo in
the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Anthony Cardulo, or Tony Lotus as he was known on
the island, was a successful club promoter in Los Angeles
and Orange County, California. He went to Catao on vacation
and fell in love with the island and decided to
move there. And once he moved there, he quickly established
himself as a successful businessman on the island.
Speaker 9 (18:44):
There was a guy I knew in California called the
Tony Cardulo. He was a nightclub promoter in Los Angeles
and Newport Beach. I lived in Newport Beach. That's where
I met him through some other friends. I told him
about this place and said, you know, you you got
to come and see this place. It's going to boom.
You know, it's a great place to go. It's a
(19:04):
nice place and if you do something there now, you
know in ten years time you'll make a lot of
money out of it. So I went to Bangkok, and
then he finally, after about ten days, showed up.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Patty Callahan was a good friend of Tony's.
Speaker 9 (19:21):
This was the year two thousand. It was right after
New Year. Tony showed up and we went to Kotau.
Tony loved the place. He was just enthrall with it.
He thought it was like Disneyland. He said, oh, this
is Disneyland. And I stayed about, I know, six weeks.
At that time. We hung out on the island. Tony
(19:42):
took a dive course at one of these dive shops,
and then I left the island and went back to
Miami and then ended up moving to Norway. I stayed
in touch with Tony.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Tony loved Katau so much that he decided to make
it his new home.
Speaker 9 (20:00):
Being a nightclub promoter, he took over one of the
bars that was on the main strip, which is called
Syre Beach. He took it over, renamed it and renamed himself.
He changed his name from Tony Cardo to Tony Lotus
and he called the bar the Lotus Bar.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
The Lotus Bar soon became a huge hit with Westerners
who were traveling to Katao.
Speaker 9 (20:19):
Obviously, the land is always owned by a Tye person.
The customers for the bar were all English speaking. There's
a lot of English on that island, quite a few
Americans and other Europeans, but I'd say more than fifty
percent more English.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Foreigners are not allowed to own or run businesses in
Katao without having a Thai business partner, so Tony had
to split ownership at the Lotus Bar with the Thai
local to run it legally.
Speaker 9 (20:45):
It was getting busier and busy and busier. Tony called
me back up about I don't know three years later
and said, Wow, things are really happening here. I'm running
this bar on the beach and it was making a
lot of money.
Speaker 10 (20:57):
Can you describe the bar like?
Speaker 2 (20:59):
What did he bring from his experience in the US
that changed say that sort of small type borrow that
was there previously to what he brought to the table.
Speaker 9 (21:08):
Tony promoted it made it into something much bigger than
it was. He was a great promoter. What he would
do is a good looking guy, young guy. He'd go
out and needed to get all the girls to come
to the bar. And if the girls come, then he'd
get the guys to come. He would do drink specials.
He'd do wet t shirt contests, they did all these things.
They had these fire dancers on the beach and stuff
(21:29):
like that, to do things that the local ties wouldn't
think of. To pack the place, and I think he
made that probably the most popular place in town.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Tony and the Lotus Club were bringing in a lot
of money, and Tony was known to party hard with
the patrons.
Speaker 9 (21:45):
He probably had crowds of three four hundred basically showing
up at sunset and drinking till two in the morning,
probably spending you know, the equivalent of thirty forty fifty
bucks each. So there was a lot of money going
through there. He mentioned that he had made maybe a million,
million and a half dollars over six or seven years,
(22:06):
eight years, so it's quite good money.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Soup Buchanan new Tony and the Lotus Bar.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
The Lotus Bar was really successful, really really successful.
Speaker 7 (22:15):
Well tell me about the bar.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
It just a really.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Really popular bar and it was one of the few
bars where lots of people from different dive schools would
go and mix together.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
But Patty saw signs that running a successful business as
a foreigner on Katau came with its challenges.
Speaker 9 (22:30):
Some other friend of ours went over there and opened
a sandwich shop, but left after a couple of years.
He told me he'd been threatened or bullied by the locals.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Patty began to notice a change on the island.
Speaker 9 (22:49):
Even in the time between nineteen ninety seven the first
one went there and then two thousand, things had started
to change on Kotau. There was already a whorehouse at
open and you know, and there was a lot more
kind of going on. There was a group of kind
of gangsters. I can't remember what the place was called,
but there was this group of gangsters that told drugs
(23:10):
on the island. I think it was called Banana something
that I can't remember what it's called, but you could
tell it was changing.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
One day, Patty got a call from Tony.
Speaker 9 (23:19):
He called me up and told me that he had
half a million dollars in cash. He wanted to get
it out of tailand and do something with it, and
he was thinking about buying gold, and he was asking
me for some advice about someone we knew that dealt
in gold. But the point was that he had quite
a lot of cash hanging around.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
And when he talked about wanting to buy gold, what
went through your mind?
Speaker 9 (23:42):
I just wondered, you know, I thought, well, if you've
got half a million dollars, is it in a bank
account or is it in a is it in a
shoe box under his bed? And how is he going
to get that into the US? And you know, how
did he manage to get that much money without someone
stealing it off him? I mean a lot of other
people were making money on that island, but there were
(24:04):
a lot of people who didn't have any money on
that island. So if you're a foreigner, you're very vulnerable.
So when Tony was in Newport Beach, he had this money,
and then I missed him. I didn't see him. He
went back to Thailand, and then I got a call
a week later saying that he was found dead in
his house and that the door or window had been
broken in. And the first thing that came into my
(24:28):
mind was, Yeah, somebody's somebody's done him.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
In Ty police reported that Tony died of a drug overdose,
but Patty had trouble believing that.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
Tony was a party character. He drank a lot, he
did take these kind of speed tablets, but it was
also really he was a healthy guy. He was quite
a sporty guy. He didn't seem to me like the
kind of guy I was just going to drop dead.
But you know, people can have hard stacks and die,
so there's a possibility because he died of the natural causes.
But when I heard about it, I thought instantly it
(25:05):
just occurred to me that somebody had done him in
to take over his business. You know, I looked at
the website for the Lotus Barn and there was no
sort of announcement that he had died or anything like that.
It just sort of carried on. So it all felt
a bit suspicious.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
But who would want to take over the Lotus Club?
Did Tony's tie business partner want to muscle him out
of the business. We've been referring to the Katau Mafia
a lot in this podcast as a reminder there are
several powerful families who make up what's known as the mafia.
Documentary filmmaker Tomstone explains.
Speaker 8 (25:42):
Those families who were first on the island have benefited
enormously from them. They owned most of the lands, they
owned most of the properties, they employed most of the people.
Speaker 9 (25:51):
They have done very very well financially out of it.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Connor continued speaking with Tony Lotus's friend Patty Callahan.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Was he a flashy guy and was he the type
of guy to buy expensive watches or jewelry or throw
money around in the bar?
Speaker 9 (26:08):
No, not really. I don't remember him being flashy. He's
like one of the guys you know, he'd just been
You just think he was a normal guy. He might
flash money around in Bangkok maybe, but I don't see
him doing that in Kotel. But one of his friends
did mention to me that people were a bit jealous
of him because he built quite a nice house, and
you know that would make you look. You know, people
(26:30):
knew he had money. I mean, you can't hide it.
It's a small place.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Do you think he's the type of person who in
that line of business would face threat.
Speaker 9 (26:39):
He must have been quite smart in how he was
dealing with things. I mean, they would have taken his
money well before that. Even you know, they don't have
to kill him to take his money. They could just say,
you know, you got to leave.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
What if Tony was threatened and didn't listen most.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Ten years later after he died, But there's been a
string of deaths murder unexplained disappearances. Knowing what you know, now,
do you think it's more or less likely that there
was something suspicious about his death.
Speaker 9 (27:08):
I think it's more likely because if you look at
the sort of pattern of how things happen down there,
if you look at the rival islands like Copenyang, right,
I think what happens is a few guys open little
bars on the beach. They have a little restaurant or
something that's going well. It gets bigger, it gets bigger,
(27:28):
and then as soon as they're serious money, these guys
they show up and they come in and they say
I want thirty or whatever. You're going to pay me,
that's it, and if you don't, they kill you. It's
the the end of the story. I met a guy
around a bar up in northern Thailand at that time,
and he said, yeah, I have protection from the army.
(27:49):
If I didn't have that, i'd be kicked out or
killed right away. And I pay them every month. That's
what you do, otherwise you can't survive. So Turning must
have had some connections or done something to protect himself
to a certain extent for a certain amount of time.
The stories that I heard about the island was that
(28:10):
the ty police, quite frankly, are completely corrupt. That's the
way it is.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Why would Tony have five hundred thousand dollars that he
would want to get out of Catau and convert into gold?
Was it brade money that he was having second thoughts about?
Was he trying to protect his money or was he
potentially acting erradically because of a drug habit.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
If we're sort of being honest about his death, do
you think it's as likely that he died or possible
that he died from just drugs and alcohol and had
a heart attack or a stroke or something like that,
or there was something more nefarious at play.
Speaker 9 (28:45):
You know, when I first heard about it, I thought
eighty percent something happened. Somebody did something to kill him.
It's perfectly easy to put something in someone's drink or
to poison them in some way, to you know, break
break into their lace when they're unconscious, and maybe they
put a pillow over his head or something. You know,
(29:05):
it's quite easy for that shit to happen, and I
have no doubt that that that's a very strong possibility.
The other side is, okay, maybe he was super drunk,
He did a load of drugs, he lost his keys,
and he broke into his own house and passed out
and had a heart stack and died. You know, I
mean that's possible. I'd say seventy percent something happened to him,
(29:27):
he was murdered, and thirty percent he had a hardtack.
Speaker 7 (29:30):
Tony Cardilla's death. Did that raise any eyebrows?
Speaker 4 (29:34):
It was just like wh he just wondered who he
pissed off? I wonder who he's upset with.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Tony's death. There were rumors that it was a business argument.
Do you ever have any sense later of what what
was the reason?
Speaker 5 (29:47):
All I was told was he just pissed the wrong
person off.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Let's stop here for another break. There are so many
unanswered questions in Tony Lotus's death, but from our research,
it wouldn't be the first or the last time someone
(30:15):
crossed the time afia and didn't live to tell the tale.
Speaker 9 (30:18):
I'd be very interested to go there and start asking
questions and see what the reaction was.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Would you fear for your life at all asking questions here?
Speaker 9 (30:25):
I think you'd have to be very careful. It's a
small island. They can't just go around murdering everybody. It's
too obvious. You know, they mean, no one left. But
what they can do is they can beat you up.
They can threaten and threaten you, they can tell you
to leave, and they will do that. Even when I
was there, most of the families who ran an operation,
(30:46):
they all had like a hard man, a guy from
Bangkok who was an ex you know, Mui Thai boxer
professional who worked for them, and his job was, you know,
general stuff. But for instance, I heard a story once
back in the old days that somebody they build these
little bamboo shacks and they tell them the tourists, you
(31:09):
don't smoke in the shack. And a tourist did that.
He was smoking in the shack, and he set fire
to it and burned it down. They chased him down
and threatened to beat him and held him hostage until
he paid for that shack. You know, it wasn't like, oh,
this is a mistake, and these were nice guys.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Tony Lotus and Ben Harrington are two of dozens of
mysterious deaths on Catau. The beauty of the island draws
people from all parts of the world, but why is
it that so many never leave?
Speaker 9 (31:40):
It was absolutely beautiful and nice place. Money brings gangsters,
and that changes things. But if you're a tourist in
that place, I think it's probably completely safe. If you're
asking questions or going, you know, trying to dig up
stuff about things that are a bit suspicious, then you
might get into problems. If you want to go there
(32:00):
and start a business, I'd be extremely careful. I'd be
very careful to make sure you knew who you were
supposed to pay off and not pay off, and I'd
find out what was happening.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
If there's anyone else you think that might know something
that we should ask.
Speaker 9 (32:14):
I remember some guys that were working there back in
those days. You can get in touch with these guys
who anyone who stayed there or was there for the
next ten years. There was an English guy I remember
it was a dive instructor. He worked at There's one place,
and then he started a restaurant in town. And there
were guys there who know everything that's going on. And
(32:35):
I remember the guy who ran the dive shop down
there as a German guy called Olaf. Guys like that
they knew everybody, They knew exactly what was going on.
They've been on the island for many years. If you
could find one of those guys who was no longer
on the island, that they might have all kinds of
information about stuff that was happening.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
As we dig deeper into Katao's history, we find we
are only scratching this surface of the violence on this
idyllic island.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Well, I was told that he'd been schmoozing one of
the Twitchyan family's girlfriends.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
In the bar.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
And is that something that could get you killed?
Speaker 6 (33:12):
Hell?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yeah, jizez, you can look at someone in Thailand the
wrong way and it will get you killed.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
I mean yeah, it doesn't take.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Much more on that next time. If you have any
information about Ben Harrington and Tony Lotus, please contact us
at producers at katdash studios dot com. For more information
and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at KT Underscore Studios.
(33:40):
Death Island is produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Connor Powell, Andrew Arnell,
Jeff Shane, Chris Caccaro, Gabriel Christillo, and me Courtney Armstrong.
Editing and sound designed by Jeff Toi. Music by vanikor Music.
Death Island is a production of iHeartRadio and KT Studios.
For more podcast from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
(34:04):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
On August thirtieth, twenty twenty twelve, the body of Ben
Harrington was found lifeless and contorted lying next to a
crashed motorbike. Police arrived on the scene and determined the
thirty two year old British backpacker had crashed into an
electricity pylon during the nighttime moped ride. His face was
(00:22):
looking towards his back. Authorities ask Mark Harrington to identify
the body. Mark confirmed it was his brother Ben. The
pair had been on holiday together in Katao. Officials quickly
concluded that the cause of death was a broken knack
due to a motor collision, but Patricia Harrington, Ben's mother
(00:43):
has questions was it an accident, a mugging gone wrong,
or something more nefarious. Ten years later, Patricia Harrington is
still hoping for a proper investigation into the death of
her son. Welcome to Death Island, a production of KT's
Studios and iHeartRadio, Episode six the cases of Ben Harrington
(01:08):
and Tony Lotus.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm Connor Powell, an investigative journalist at KAT Studios with
Stephanie Lydecker, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew Arnow and Jeff Shane. Last episode,
we were covering the cases of Hannah Witheridge and David Miller,
and we will get back to them as mentioned, we're
hoping to get more information about their autopsies and the
DNA evidence, but we're going to turn our attention in
(01:33):
this episode to a different suspicious case. In August of
twenty twelve, Ben Harrington was on a much needed holiday
with his brother and friend. The thirty two year old
IT consultant was staying at a villa on Sorry Beach.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Just after midnight, Ben allegedly crashed into an electrical poll
and died. The police ruled his death in accident and
said Ben died of a broken neck, but when his
family began asking questions and looking closer at his death,
it became clear that this accident was not so cut
and dry.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
For starters, There's no evidence Ben's body had any break
in the neck area, which would imply a broken neck.
His wallet and personal belongings were also missing. If he
had died alone on the road, wouldn't they probably still
be there. His mother also heard rumors that muggers used
wires to trip up motorcyclists so they could steal from them.
So the question is is did Ben become the casualty
(02:27):
of this petty crime.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
A pattern's beginning to emerge. Right A backpacker gets drawn
to a paradise and meets a tragic end, only for
the authorities to not appear to conduct a proper investigation
into their death. Ben was only thirty two when he
arrived on Kata with his brother Mark and another friend.
According to Mark, they were on holiday and looking forward
(02:48):
to days of partying and exploring the island.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
On the night of August twenty ninth, Ben wanted to
keep the party going and he wanted to head downtown.
He asked his brother Mark if he wanted to join him,
but Mark passed, so Ben walked down the steps to
his ren and moped, hopped on it, and drove off.
The lights dimmed on the moped as Ben drove into
the night. That was the last time Mark saw his
brother alive.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Mark went to the morgue to identify his brother's body.
According to their mother, Patricia, she was told by the
Thai authorities that the cause of her son's death was
a broken neck. They told her they knew his neck
was broken because his head was facing the wrong direction.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Ti authorities wanted to cremate Ben's body, but the next
day Patricia, Ben's mom, called the Home office in the
UK to get them to stop the cremation. Patricia flew
Ben's body home and a post mortem exam done in
the UK revealed that Ben had a lot of broken bones,
but his neck wasn't one of them. The UK coroner
ruled that Ben died of a transsected orda, a rupture
(03:52):
of the body's largest artery, but not a broken neck.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
The coroner also stated he wouldn't record the death as
an accident because he there wasn't sufficient evidence to support
that theory. It was definitely a tragedy, clearly a collision
of some kind. But now Patricia had more questions than
answers about how Ben died. Was it an accident, was
it a mugging gone wrong? Or was it something even
more nefarious.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Ben's mother, Patricia had heard about several robberies happening in
Thailand involving motorbikes. Connor spoke with Sue Buchanan, an author
and journalists who lived on Thailand for years. She wrote
the book The Curse of the Turtle, The True Story
of Thailand's backpacker murders.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
I mean I heard about Ben. I heard down that
back road where Ben had his accident. There was a
couple of ties. You used to put like a trip
wire across the road, and that's really the only road
that you could get any kind of speed up on,
So they just put a trip wire there, and quite often,
you know, people would fall off their bike and they
just robed them.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
The tai police concluded Ben's death was an accident, likely
caused by drunk driving. His watch and while it were
both missing, and this kind of robbery was a very
common occurrence Uncle Tow in twenty twelve, Like.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
People are falling off motorbikes all the time. People are
you know, pissing the ties off and ending up dead
all the time. So it kind of creeps up on you.
You just get used to it. It's quite normal. I
went to nine funerals in nine weeks. Once I look
back and think, how did that possibly become normal to me?
Speaker 5 (05:27):
But it did. It was just normal. It was just
a normal part of living there.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Did Ben anger the wrong local Uncle Tow or cross
paths with the mafia? Or was his death an accident.
Sky News correspondent Jonathan Samuel's also looked into Ben Harrington's case.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
The accident on the moped, was there a trip wire?
I mean, his parents seemed to think that he was
robbed and maybe had been pushed off of the moped,
but there was just no proper investigation, or certainly that's
what that's what the parents say so many instance. I mean,
it's very frustrating because you don't necessarily whether the police
are covering things up or whether they're just very amateurish.
(06:09):
They've not had the training, they haven't got the equipment,
they haven't got the manpower, so they sort of make
something up in order to cover their tracks.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Here's Connor and Andrew.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, this is one of those things where it's very
possible that it was a motorcycle accident. Maybe even he
was drunk or just took a turn too fast. I mean,
that's totally plausible. It's also possible that in Thailand and
in a lot of other countries that there are people
who prey on the people who rent these motorcycles and
(06:40):
mopeds and they set up traps with the intention of
robbing them. This happens, it's there's stories about this, and
maybe his a motorcycle accident was the result of this.
Potential mugging. But if that's the case, then it's clear
that the police didn't do much of an investigation into
who might have caused it.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Right, And why would the police want to cover up
the death of a tourist. You know, if it's an accident,
it makes a lot more sense to just say, hey,
it was an accident and here's what happened. Sue started
to dig in into all of these mysterious deaths, and
this was around twenty thirteen at.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
This point when Ben dies. Thailand is a backpacking haven.
People are coming from all over the world for many
years at this point, but it also a place was,
you know, where tourists gather. There's always scams, and there's
always petty theft and things like that, and this is
one of those cases that it might have just have
been a petty theft that went really wrong. But tay
police on Kotal don't appear to have taken it at
(07:35):
all serious as the result of a crime gone wrong.
They just sort of dismissed it as, oh, it was
an accident. The westerner, the tourist was being reckless and
never mind, we're not going to look any further.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
But why not just say, hey, he got in an
accident and something sliced his aorta. Instead they said, oh,
he broke his neck his head was facing the wrong direction.
I mean, that's a really dramatic thing to just make up.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
And this is part of the pattern, right, This is
what we're seeing time and time again, which is that
there are these deaths and there's just no investigation, and
anytime that there's the potential that a local type person
could be involved in the murder, the investigation is just
immediately pushed to the side, and the tourist, the westerner,
the visitor is immediately blamed or sort of written off
(08:23):
as their death is their own fault.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Soup Buchanan started investigating the mysterious deaths I'm Catao in
twenty thirteen. Early on, she began to notice a pattern.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
I mean, occasionally someone would get shot or murdered and
I'd go down and have a look, but I wasn't
really reporting on it. So it's only when I started
this so many times my own online publication in twenty
thirteen that I started to cover those kind of stories.
So we launched in July twenty thirteen, and a couple
of things that did happen I put in the paper
and I was immediately told to take them out.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
So you can't. You can't cover that story.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Like there's jets muffia on coasts tom who were quite
often killing each other and scamming tourists.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
And there was a couple of island tours.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
That you know, they'd come screaming across the hill in
four wheel drives and skid off the path and you know,
pile the four wheel drive into someone's house and a
couple of tourist would die. And there was another guy
who got more by an elephant when an elephant went
ballistic on a tour. And I used to go and
cover those things and put them in the paper, and
I just get a phone call.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
Then you got to take it out. You can't. You
can't put that in there.
Speaker 7 (09:26):
Who was calling you, well.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Various different people, really my business partner who was quite
well connected, and people I've been friends with for a
long time. And so someone would just tell someone to
call me and just take it out.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
So I just take it out. I just delete it.
Speaker 7 (09:42):
Imquied threats or was it like you would be smart
not to print this.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
No, it's like, unless you want trouble or get that
out of your paper, like, don't report on anything this
family do.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
And I'm like, all right, fine, And if I.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Ever wanted to report on stuff like that, I would
wait until it was in someone else's newspaper and then
rewrite the article from there newspaper because once it was
broken in like one of the other papers, then it
was safe for me to report on it.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
That was like the unwritten rule.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Really, Sue turned a blind eye to stories about the
Katao mafia in the beginning, but she continued reporting on
other crimes. Sue's reporting eventually led to a search warrant
being issued for her arrest. Connor and Stephanie spoke with
Sue about this.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
So I wrote this story about a girl who was raped,
They said, I made the story up, so they try
and do me for computer crimes, fake news, bringing Thailand
into disrepute and inciting national panic. Bearing in mind, when
I wrote this story, I was in the UK, my
server was in Singapore, and my company's registered in the Philippines.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
So have I committed a time in a crime entire?
I wasn't in Thailand.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
The story was uploaded to a server in Singapore from
the UK and the Saumuvie Times company was registered in
the Philippines and the story was so untrue they sent
five police officers over from Thailand to get the T
shirt from the rape victim and had the DNA on
it for a climate didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
We wanted to find out more about the Computer Crimes
Act in Thailand and how it's being used by authorities
to silence journalists. Ian Yarwood is a lawyer and activist
who's researched the mysterious deaths on Katao. Here he is
speaking with Connor.
Speaker 8 (11:18):
There's no real free speech in Thailand. People are routinely
jailed for criminal defamation and breaches of the Computer Crimes Act,
and also they've got majesty laws and people have been
thrown in jail for criticizing the King's dog. I mean,
that's how ridiculous it becomes, and people get thrown in prison.
(11:39):
I mean sometimes with things like The's someone might criticize
a certain institution that because it may have the name
royal attached to it. They'll say, oh, that's actually an
extension of the list law and you can go to
jail for that. So it's actually a completely different world
if you come from place like Australia or the US.
(12:02):
In Thailand, there's no real free speech. And with the
Computer Crimes Act, it's actually extremely badly written. It's been
rewritten every now and then that it's written in very
vague language.
Speaker 9 (12:13):
You know.
Speaker 8 (12:13):
The language in the Computer Crimes Act was along the
line of it's an offense to put something into a
computer that could harm someone else. And the idea of
that initially was you shouldn't have viruses, so you shouldn't
be sending viruses to other people. But then some smart
or devious people in the police force and the legal
(12:36):
profession said, oh, hang on, all something dangerous that could
actually mean if you write something critical. So it was
used then to extend to defamation that even though they
had their own criminal defamation laws, they thought, oh, well,
you use the Computer Crimes Act and that very penalties
of up to five years in prison.
Speaker 10 (12:54):
So it was a very.
Speaker 8 (12:55):
Badly written law, and then people would interpret it extremely widely.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
If you combine in a judicial system that is chaotic
and sort of disorganized and without precedent, along with a
corrupt police force, yeah, I mean, is that sort of
the root cause of a lot of the problems on
a place like hotel or does it go deeper.
Speaker 8 (13:15):
Yeah, well that's a big part of it.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
But why would Thai authorities want to silence journalists reporting
on crimes. Jonathan Samuels thinks it all comes down to tourism.
Speaker 11 (13:26):
Tourism is so important to Thailand. I'm hugely important, and
I think the last thing the Thai government wants are
these sort of stories going around the world, and they
will do almost anything it takes to make sure they
don't and to try and sort of wrap things up.
It's about protecting their tourism industry and the huge amount
of money brings in.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Connor spoke with Sam Gruber about tourism and the Thai
government as well. Sam is a former journalist and entrepreneur
in Thailand.
Speaker 7 (13:56):
When you step back and look at everything you know
about Kotel, why have authorities there not taken steps to
launch proper investigations to try to change the narrative of
the island. I mean, it is a massive money maker,
it's a popular destination. It's internationals, not just Brits. There's
people from all over the world. And yet if the
(14:17):
Thai government type police took investigations just a little bit serious.
Don't you think you could turn the narrative the reputation
of the island very quickly.
Speaker 10 (14:25):
By our culture and by our understanding is But the
type people they see completely different. What they see is
they had the business, they build it up, they want
to make money, and then these wisterners come here drunk,
reckless or whatever, and they don't take care of themselves,
and then they get themselves into trouble and something happens,
and then the media coming from all over the world
(14:47):
and start to cry foul play, and actually they are
disturbing their piece. It's the other way around. The type
people say it's us before in us just simply not
comprehending that it was the own fault. Everybody who goes
there and throws all all warnings overboard about security, about
how to behave in Thai culture, not to run top less.
(15:10):
It's a conservative country still yet and the type people
they they blame us. Actually, when I go to Kotau
and I listen to the people, they say, Okay, Hannah
and David, who were clearly murdered, those are the two
the only ones confirmed having been murdered. All the others.
(15:31):
They always found another explanations over those reckless medication used,
drug use or jumping from from dj towers into the pool.
There was always an explanation. It was always the fault
of the of the victims. But to cut a long
story short, nothing really changed. It's still in the hands
(15:53):
of the Kotau people, the ties. They run it their way.
They don't want us to interfere, and that's that's the way.
That's the way it stays. We cannot be scared to
the end of our days because normal type people in
the normal Kotao people there are good guys. You go
there and you have fun and nothing happens to you.
So clear these through some cases, bring transparency, be nice
(16:17):
to the parents of victims. That's all I'm asking for,
and then we can move on. What you need is
a police force that earns the description. You need people there.
You need a forensic examination if something happens, which is
clear and transparent and credible, and then you can avoid
(16:37):
a lot of trouble coming up, a lot of rumors
which is so poisonous and so paid for the reputation
of hold. Thailand is a tourist destination. We all suffer.
I'm running my hotel, everybody suffering when these reports go out.
None of us is happy, and we don't want to
blame local mafia whatever. That doesn't help us. We want
the police please find out, that's your job, what happened,
(16:59):
and make it credible that the people at least they
get the answers they deserve.
Speaker 7 (17:04):
Do you have any hope that things could change?
Speaker 10 (17:07):
I think only when these people who are behind some
mysterious things, when they learn that their actions they have consequences,
and the consequences are when they get everything gets into
the public and the tourist start up coming again, because
then the others we might also be turning against him
and say stop it because you're also interfering in our
(17:30):
business vid your behavior. But without a minimum of transparency
to how or Thailand will not proceed into a better
touristic future. That's the way I see it.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. As we dig deeper, find even more mysterious
deaths on pTau.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
So tourists are dying, and the local authorities on Kotel
seemed to be covering it up at worst and at
best doing a lackluster job in investigating these mysterious deaths. Now,
to understand why the authorities have gone to such links
to try to protect the tourism industry on Kotau, we
need to look at the story of Anthony Cardulo in
the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Anthony Cardulo, or Tony Lotus as he was known on
the island, was a successful club promoter in Los Angeles
and Orange County, California. He went to Catao on vacation
and fell in love with the island and decided to
move there. And once he moved there, he quickly established
himself as a successful businessman on the island.
Speaker 9 (18:44):
There was a guy I knew in California called the
Tony Cardulo. He was a nightclub promoter in Los Angeles
and Newport Beach. I lived in Newport Beach. That's where
I met him through some other friends. I told him
about this place and said, you know, you you got
to come and see this place. It's going to boom.
You know, it's a great place to go. It's a
(19:04):
nice place and if you do something there now, you
know in ten years time you'll make a lot of
money out of it. So I went to Bangkok, and
then he finally, after about ten days, showed up.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Patty Callahan was a good friend of Tony's.
Speaker 9 (19:21):
This was the year two thousand. It was right after
New Year. Tony showed up and we went to Kotau.
Tony loved the place. He was just enthrall with it.
He thought it was like Disneyland. He said, oh, this
is Disneyland. And I stayed about, I know, six weeks.
At that time. We hung out on the island. Tony
(19:42):
took a dive course at one of these dive shops,
and then I left the island and went back to
Miami and then ended up moving to Norway. I stayed
in touch with Tony.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Tony loved Katau so much that he decided to make
it his new home.
Speaker 9 (20:00):
Being a nightclub promoter, he took over one of the
bars that was on the main strip, which is called
Syre Beach. He took it over, renamed it and renamed himself.
He changed his name from Tony Cardo to Tony Lotus
and he called the bar the Lotus Bar.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
The Lotus Bar soon became a huge hit with Westerners
who were traveling to Katao.
Speaker 9 (20:19):
Obviously, the land is always owned by a Tye person.
The customers for the bar were all English speaking. There's
a lot of English on that island, quite a few
Americans and other Europeans, but I'd say more than fifty
percent more English.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Foreigners are not allowed to own or run businesses in
Katao without having a Thai business partner, so Tony had
to split ownership at the Lotus Bar with the Thai
local to run it legally.
Speaker 9 (20:45):
It was getting busier and busy and busier. Tony called
me back up about I don't know three years later
and said, Wow, things are really happening here. I'm running
this bar on the beach and it was making a
lot of money.
Speaker 10 (20:57):
Can you describe the bar like?
Speaker 2 (20:59):
What did he bring from his experience in the US
that changed say that sort of small type borrow that
was there previously to what he brought to the table.
Speaker 9 (21:08):
Tony promoted it made it into something much bigger than
it was. He was a great promoter. What he would
do is a good looking guy, young guy. He'd go
out and needed to get all the girls to come
to the bar. And if the girls come, then he'd
get the guys to come. He would do drink specials.
He'd do wet t shirt contests, they did all these things.
They had these fire dancers on the beach and stuff
(21:29):
like that, to do things that the local ties wouldn't
think of. To pack the place, and I think he
made that probably the most popular place in town.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Tony and the Lotus Club were bringing in a lot
of money, and Tony was known to party hard with
the patrons.
Speaker 9 (21:45):
He probably had crowds of three four hundred basically showing
up at sunset and drinking till two in the morning,
probably spending you know, the equivalent of thirty forty fifty
bucks each. So there was a lot of money going
through there. He mentioned that he had made maybe a million,
million and a half dollars over six or seven years,
(22:06):
eight years, so it's quite good money.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Soup Buchanan new Tony and the Lotus Bar.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
The Lotus Bar was really successful, really really successful.
Speaker 7 (22:15):
Well tell me about the bar.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
It just a really.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Really popular bar and it was one of the few
bars where lots of people from different dive schools would
go and mix together.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
But Patty saw signs that running a successful business as
a foreigner on Katau came with its challenges.
Speaker 9 (22:30):
Some other friend of ours went over there and opened
a sandwich shop, but left after a couple of years.
He told me he'd been threatened or bullied by the locals.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Patty began to notice a change on the island.
Speaker 9 (22:49):
Even in the time between nineteen ninety seven the first
one went there and then two thousand, things had started
to change on Kotau. There was already a whorehouse at
open and you know, and there was a lot more
kind of going on. There was a group of kind
of gangsters. I can't remember what the place was called,
but there was this group of gangsters that told drugs
(23:10):
on the island. I think it was called Banana something
that I can't remember what it's called, but you could
tell it was changing.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
One day, Patty got a call from Tony.
Speaker 9 (23:19):
He called me up and told me that he had
half a million dollars in cash. He wanted to get
it out of tailand and do something with it, and
he was thinking about buying gold, and he was asking
me for some advice about someone we knew that dealt
in gold. But the point was that he had quite
a lot of cash hanging around.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
And when he talked about wanting to buy gold, what
went through your mind?
Speaker 9 (23:42):
I just wondered, you know, I thought, well, if you've
got half a million dollars, is it in a bank
account or is it in a is it in a
shoe box under his bed? And how is he going
to get that into the US? And you know, how
did he manage to get that much money without someone
stealing it off him? I mean a lot of other
people were making money on that island, but there were
(24:04):
a lot of people who didn't have any money on
that island. So if you're a foreigner, you're very vulnerable.
So when Tony was in Newport Beach, he had this money,
and then I missed him. I didn't see him. He
went back to Thailand, and then I got a call
a week later saying that he was found dead in
his house and that the door or window had been
broken in. And the first thing that came into my
(24:28):
mind was, Yeah, somebody's somebody's done him.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
In Ty police reported that Tony died of a drug overdose,
but Patty had trouble believing that.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
Tony was a party character. He drank a lot, he
did take these kind of speed tablets, but it was
also really he was a healthy guy. He was quite
a sporty guy. He didn't seem to me like the
kind of guy I was just going to drop dead.
But you know, people can have hard stacks and die,
so there's a possibility because he died of the natural causes.
But when I heard about it, I thought instantly it
(25:05):
just occurred to me that somebody had done him in
to take over his business. You know, I looked at
the website for the Lotus Barn and there was no
sort of announcement that he had died or anything like that.
It just sort of carried on. So it all felt
a bit suspicious.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
But who would want to take over the Lotus Club?
Did Tony's tie business partner want to muscle him out
of the business. We've been referring to the Katau Mafia
a lot in this podcast as a reminder there are
several powerful families who make up what's known as the mafia.
Documentary filmmaker Tomstone explains.
Speaker 8 (25:42):
Those families who were first on the island have benefited
enormously from them. They owned most of the lands, they
owned most of the properties, they employed most of the people.
Speaker 9 (25:51):
They have done very very well financially out of it.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Connor continued speaking with Tony Lotus's friend Patty Callahan.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Was he a flashy guy and was he the type
of guy to buy expensive watches or jewelry or throw
money around in the bar?
Speaker 9 (26:08):
No, not really. I don't remember him being flashy. He's
like one of the guys you know, he'd just been
You just think he was a normal guy. He might
flash money around in Bangkok maybe, but I don't see
him doing that in Kotel. But one of his friends
did mention to me that people were a bit jealous
of him because he built quite a nice house, and
you know that would make you look. You know, people
(26:30):
knew he had money. I mean, you can't hide it.
It's a small place.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Do you think he's the type of person who in
that line of business would face threat.
Speaker 9 (26:39):
He must have been quite smart in how he was
dealing with things. I mean, they would have taken his
money well before that. Even you know, they don't have
to kill him to take his money. They could just say,
you know, you got to leave.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
What if Tony was threatened and didn't listen most.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Ten years later after he died, But there's been a
string of deaths murder unexplained disappearances. Knowing what you know, now,
do you think it's more or less likely that there
was something suspicious about his death.
Speaker 9 (27:08):
I think it's more likely because if you look at
the sort of pattern of how things happen down there,
if you look at the rival islands like Copenyang, right,
I think what happens is a few guys open little
bars on the beach. They have a little restaurant or
something that's going well. It gets bigger, it gets bigger,
(27:28):
and then as soon as they're serious money, these guys
they show up and they come in and they say
I want thirty or whatever. You're going to pay me,
that's it, and if you don't, they kill you. It's
the the end of the story. I met a guy
around a bar up in northern Thailand at that time,
and he said, yeah, I have protection from the army.
(27:49):
If I didn't have that, i'd be kicked out or
killed right away. And I pay them every month. That's
what you do, otherwise you can't survive. So Turning must
have had some connections or done something to protect himself
to a certain extent for a certain amount of time.
The stories that I heard about the island was that
(28:10):
the ty police, quite frankly, are completely corrupt. That's the
way it is.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Why would Tony have five hundred thousand dollars that he
would want to get out of Catau and convert into gold?
Was it brade money that he was having second thoughts about?
Was he trying to protect his money or was he
potentially acting erradically because of a drug habit.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
If we're sort of being honest about his death, do
you think it's as likely that he died or possible
that he died from just drugs and alcohol and had
a heart attack or a stroke or something like that,
or there was something more nefarious at play.
Speaker 9 (28:45):
You know, when I first heard about it, I thought
eighty percent something happened. Somebody did something to kill him.
It's perfectly easy to put something in someone's drink or
to poison them in some way, to you know, break
break into their lace when they're unconscious, and maybe they
put a pillow over his head or something. You know,
(29:05):
it's quite easy for that shit to happen, and I
have no doubt that that that's a very strong possibility.
The other side is, okay, maybe he was super drunk,
He did a load of drugs, he lost his keys,
and he broke into his own house and passed out
and had a heart stack and died. You know, I
mean that's possible. I'd say seventy percent something happened to him,
(29:27):
he was murdered, and thirty percent he had a hardtack.
Speaker 7 (29:30):
Tony Cardilla's death. Did that raise any eyebrows?
Speaker 4 (29:34):
It was just like wh he just wondered who he
pissed off? I wonder who he's upset with.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Tony's death. There were rumors that it was a business argument.
Do you ever have any sense later of what what
was the reason?
Speaker 5 (29:47):
All I was told was he just pissed the wrong
person off.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Let's stop here for another break. There are so many
unanswered questions in Tony Lotus's death, but from our research,
it wouldn't be the first or the last time someone
(30:15):
crossed the time afia and didn't live to tell the tale.
Speaker 9 (30:18):
I'd be very interested to go there and start asking
questions and see what the reaction was.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Would you fear for your life at all asking questions here?
Speaker 9 (30:25):
I think you'd have to be very careful. It's a
small island. They can't just go around murdering everybody. It's
too obvious. You know, they mean, no one left. But
what they can do is they can beat you up.
They can threaten and threaten you, they can tell you
to leave, and they will do that. Even when I
was there, most of the families who ran an operation,
(30:46):
they all had like a hard man, a guy from
Bangkok who was an ex you know, Mui Thai boxer
professional who worked for them, and his job was, you know,
general stuff. But for instance, I heard a story once
back in the old days that somebody they build these
little bamboo shacks and they tell them the tourists, you
(31:09):
don't smoke in the shack. And a tourist did that.
He was smoking in the shack, and he set fire
to it and burned it down. They chased him down
and threatened to beat him and held him hostage until
he paid for that shack. You know, it wasn't like, oh,
this is a mistake, and these were nice guys.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Tony Lotus and Ben Harrington are two of dozens of
mysterious deaths on Catau. The beauty of the island draws
people from all parts of the world, but why is
it that so many never leave?
Speaker 9 (31:40):
It was absolutely beautiful and nice place. Money brings gangsters,
and that changes things. But if you're a tourist in
that place, I think it's probably completely safe. If you're
asking questions or going, you know, trying to dig up
stuff about things that are a bit suspicious, then you
might get into problems. If you want to go there
(32:00):
and start a business, I'd be extremely careful. I'd be
very careful to make sure you knew who you were
supposed to pay off and not pay off, and I'd
find out what was happening.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
If there's anyone else you think that might know something
that we should ask.
Speaker 9 (32:14):
I remember some guys that were working there back in
those days. You can get in touch with these guys
who anyone who stayed there or was there for the
next ten years. There was an English guy I remember
it was a dive instructor. He worked at There's one place,
and then he started a restaurant in town. And there
were guys there who know everything that's going on. And
(32:35):
I remember the guy who ran the dive shop down
there as a German guy called Olaf. Guys like that
they knew everybody, They knew exactly what was going on.
They've been on the island for many years. If you
could find one of those guys who was no longer
on the island, that they might have all kinds of
information about stuff that was happening.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
As we dig deeper into Katao's history, we find we
are only scratching this surface of the violence on this
idyllic island.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Well, I was told that he'd been schmoozing one of
the Twitchyan family's girlfriends.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
In the bar.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
And is that something that could get you killed?
Speaker 6 (33:12):
Hell?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yeah, jizez, you can look at someone in Thailand the
wrong way and it will get you killed.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
I mean yeah, it doesn't take.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Much more on that next time. If you have any
information about Ben Harrington and Tony Lotus, please contact us
at producers at katdash studios dot com. For more information
and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at KT Underscore Studios.
(33:40):
Death Island is produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Connor Powell, Andrew Arnell,
Jeff Shane, Chris Caccaro, Gabriel Christillo, and me Courtney Armstrong.
Editing and sound designed by Jeff Toi. Music by vanikor Music.
Death Island is a production of iHeartRadio and KT Studios.
For more podcast from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
(34:04):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Stephanie Lydecker
Courtney Armstrong
Jeff Shane
Conor Powell
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