Australian Shaun Edward Davidson, 31, was among the escapees. Photo/News Corp Australia
Australian Shaun Edward Davidson, 31, was among the escapees. Photo/News Corp Australia
He's led the police and the media on a Facebook wild goose chase, "checking in" everywhere from an Amsterdam nightclub to a Dubai chill out lounge and a German massage parlour.
But the "Catch me if you Can" antics of Australian Bali jail escapee Shaun Davidson are more likely to be playing out in south-east Asia than Europe or the Middle East.
Bali police believe an international crime syndicate helped arrange a safe passage for Davidson and three of his fellow inmates after they dramatically tunnelled their way out of the island's Kerobokan jail on June 19.
A view of the tunnel that an Australian man and three other foreigners are believed to have escaped through outside Kerobokan prison in Bali. Photo / AAP
Two of the men, Bulgarian money launderer Dimitar Nikolov Iliev and Indian drug smuggler Sayed Mohammed Said, were caught at luxury resort Novo Turismo in Dili East Timor last Thursday.
Davidson and a fourth man, 50-year-old Malaysian national and fellow drug offender Tee Kok King, remain at large.
Tee has apparently kept a low profile while on the run while Davidson, 33, has used at least one of his Facebook accounts (he has five that news.com.au is aware of) to throw the authorities and the media off course.
Last week, the Perth native reportedly "checked in" to four different countries, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and the UAE using the Facebook alter ego Matthew Rageone Ridler.
However, given he was smart enough to break out of one of the world's most infamous jails, it seems unlikely he would be dumb enough to seek refuge in Europe or the UAE, let alone effectively hold up a sign saying "I am here".
It is far more likely Davidson is rubbing shoulders with fellow criminals in the Thai resort city of Pattaya - arguably the fugitive capital of the world - having been given a new identity and safe house by his contacts in the boxing community and outlaw motorcycle gang world.
Shaun Davidson (centre with black bandana) parties with friends in Bali's Engine Room nightclub. Photo / Facebook
Shaun Davidson parties with friends in Bali's Engine Room nightclub. Photo / Facebook
Pattaya has long been a mecca for foreign crime syndicates and gangs fighting for a piece of this beachside paradise include Australian bikie gangs and Russian mobsters.
Davidson is a boxing instructor who taught classes at Kerobokan prison, where his students included Bali Nine member Matthew Norman.
He has friends and contacts in Mixed Martial Arts and Muay Thai communities in several south east Asian countries and links to at least one outlaw motorcycle gang - the Mongols in Perth.
The Mongols, Hells Angels, Bandidos and Commanchero bikie gangs all have chapters in Thailand, where they have increasingly been linked to the drug production trade.
In February this year, Australian kickboxer Antonio Bagnato was sentenced to death by lethal injection for his role in the murder of former Sydney Hells Angel Wayne Schneider, 38.
Australian kickboxer Antonio Bagnato is on death row in Thailand following his February 2017 conviction for the murder of Sydney ex-Hells Angel Wayne Schneider in Pattaya. Photo / AAP
Schneider was kidnapped from his luxury villa in Pattaya by a group of masked men in December 2015. His naked body, badly beaten and with a broken neck, was found buried in a shallow grave some six days later after investigators tracked a GPS device in a hired van used in the abduction.
American Tyler Gerard, 22, was convicted of being involved in the kidnap and given a reduced two-year sentence for co-operating with authorities.
In January, UK computer programmer Tony Kenway was gunned down minutes after leaving the gym in Pattaya, where he had built up a "Wolf of Wall Street-style" call centre empire that had duped Brits and Australians out of millions of dollars.
Kenway, 39, was shot through the head as he climbed into his Porsche Cayenne outside the Sanit Sports Club on January 24.
According to the Samui Times, police suspect Kenway was murdered over an eight million baht debt (around AUD 31,000).
A British man, Toby James Nelham, 44, was arrested in Cambodia on February 11 in relation to the hit. Two other suspects, UK-born Miles Dicken Turner and South African national Abel Bonito Caldeira, remain on the run.
British conman Tony Kenway, 39, was shot twice in the head as he climbed into his Porsche in Pattaya in. Police believe the hit was arranged by a rival underworld figure. Photo / Facebook
Investigators allege Kenway used his "boiler room" gang operation to fund his lavish lifestyle in Pattaya by cheating thousands of people out of their life savings.
Court papers show Thai authorities were trying to have Kenway deported after receiving a tip-off that he was working in the country illegally.
The Times reported that Kenway was one of ten shady UK mafia figures operating in Pattaya.
At the time of his murder, he had been out on bail and was scheduled to front court the following month.
"Tony Kenway had a call centre that employed foreign staff and made calls to Australia and Britain. He had two different companies that were involved in the scam," an unnamed police source told The Sun earlier this year.
"The aim was to get people abroad to give their life savings. It was not small amounts.
"He was strong and pushed them for big investments. He promised them a big win. Like winning the lottery.
"The people who paid the money lost out. It was big amounts, millions and millions of Thai baht that many different people paid to him."
The source said Kenway's victims were foreigners because he "did not dare" target local Thais.
Those high profile cases led Thai authorities to crack down on foreign gangs on Pattaya other hotspots like Phuket and the party islands of Koh Samui and Koh Phangan.
The initiative has been promoting using the slogan: "Good guys in, bad guys out".
Earlier this month, British fugitive drug baron Jonathan Moorby was arrested on Koh Samui - three years after he fled England while on bail following his conviction over a multi-million-dollar narcotics syndicate.
Moorby had a string of previous drug offences to his name but went on the run in 2014 shortly before an English court sentenced him to nearly 20 years in jail in absentia for conspiracy to supply more than £1 million (AUD$1.3 million) of cocaine and amphetamines.
"We were asked by the British Embassy's Interpol representative to arrest the suspect," Major General Soontorn Chalermkiat of Thailand's Narcotics Suppression Police told reporters at a press conference.
"He is a key drugs trafficking suspect in Britain, dealing in cocaine and ice."
Major General Soontorn said Moorby was in possession of a fake Belgian passport at the time of his capture.
In March, police arrested Russian Matvey Shuvalov, 45, for his links to the Phuket underworld crime scene only to discover he was on Interpol's list of wanted fugitives.
Shuvalov had apparently been hiding out in Thailand for 20 years and had four children with his Thai wife.
He allegedly swindled Russian property buyers out of a collective US$248,000 they shelled out for 200 condominiums in Thailand. Police allege he took their money without transferring the properties.
Russian police and Interpol contacted Thai immigration via the Russian Embassy in Thailand to help track down Shuvalov over cases dating back to 2008.
In the same swoop, Norwegian national Indal Stig-asbjoern and American Aarl Bagley - both wanted for sex offences in their home countries - were arrested and are currently awaiting extradition.
A fifth man, Yakov Elfasi, was arrested on charges of forgery and sex-related offences committed in his native Israel.
Pakistani fugitive terrorist Jagtar Singh Tara (centre) masterminded a suicide bomb attack that killed 18 people. Photo / Getty Images
Even extremely high profile criminals, such as convicted Pakistani terrorist Jagtar Singh Tara, have found a way to blend in with Pattaya's colourful floating population.
Tara was arrested in the resort city some twenty years after he masterminded a suicide bombing that killed 18 people in the northern Indian state of Punjab.
The 37-year-old was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1996 for his role in arranging a suicide bomber to kill the then-chief minister Beant Singh on August 31, 1995.
The explosion outside the civil secretariat tore the minister's car and two escort vehicles to pieces, with the blast and its resulting shrapnel killing another 17 people.
Beant - a Sikh himself - had been targeted for allegedly directing a ruthless and controversial campaign against Sikh separatists in the state.
Tara and three of his fellow bombers tunnelled out of a maximum-security prison in Chandigarh in 2004. Two were recaptured but Singh remained on the run until police and military officers caught up with him at a rented house in East Pattaya near the Siam Country Club in January 2015.
Both Thai and Indian sources confirmed he'd been in Thailand since at least October, if not earlier.
Thai officials said he entered Thailand using the name of Gurmeet Singh, who was imprisoned with Tara. But the 42-year-old never escaped and was, in fact, released on parole in December 2013 after serving 18 years in prison.
Indian media reported that Punjab police spent three weeks in Thailand in September last year but lost track of Singh.
Shaun Davidson is still on the run. The Facebook posts claiming he's in Germany, Denmark and Dubai could be throwing authorities off. He could be much closer to home.
