Mr John Kealey, Mr Ronan Murray and Mr Paul Hickey, the three Irishmen arrested on suspicion of running an illegal "boiler room" stock scam in Bangkok, have been acquitted of fraud.

Speaking last night in Bangkok, Mr Kealey said: "The case was cleared by the Attorney General's Office in Bangkok and never went to court. We showed them all manner of documents about how the investors' money was spent and they came to the conclusion that there was no evidence of fraud in anything we did.

"The fact is they picked on the wrong guys. The guilty people working for other companies just upped and left. Other charges relating to operating an illegal company remain to be dealt with, but we're confident of being acquitted of those charges as well."

Mr Kealey, who runs the Dubliner Irish theme pub in Bangkok, claimed the illegal "boiler room" businesses had now relocated to Costa Rica.