Three "boiler room" operations based in Thailand have tried to sell securities to Irish residents in the last 12 months, according to the Central Bank. A Bank spokesman said the two companies involved in the clampdown by Thai authorities on Thursday - Brinton Group and Benson Dupont Capital Management - have not come to the attention of the Irish authorities.
The spokesman said the Bank had put notices in the newspapers advising people that Sherman Brothers, Transglobal Consultants and Gerson Lehmann, all based in Thailand, were not authorised to carry out business in Ireland. They are among 74 firms that have come to its attention since 1998.
A Bank spokesman said it acted only on foot of complaints from the public and it was possible that Brinton Group and Benson Dupont had been actively targeting Irish residents. Ten Irish nationals and 34 British nationals were among over 80 foreigners arrested in the Thai capital on Thursday during a raid on the two illegal broking houses, which are suspected of defrauding overseas investors of more than £100 million (#127 million).
They were placed in the custody of immigration police and were yesterday fined 5,000 baht (£146) for working without permits in South Bangkok Criminal Court. A further six were fined 3,000 baht for overstaying their visas.
The court waived a sentence of two months' imprisonment for the group. Thai authorities were uncertain yesterday evening whether the group would be released under their own power or detained over the weekend at Suan Phlu immigration detention centre before being deported.
Estimates of how much money has been collected in the last two years since cold-calling operations came to Bangkok reach into hundreds of millions of dollars, most of it coming from Australia and New Zealand.
Thailand has attracted several firms looking to target Australian investors because of its constant supply of English-speaking travellers and lax regulations.
Pressure placed on the Thai Securities and Exchanges Commission from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission and the New Zealand Securities Commission prompted the authority to publish a list of 21 other operations about which it had received complaints.
The modus operandi of boiler-room firms is to target small business owners picked out of a phone book by an "opener", who then uses high-pressure telephone sales tactics to get a sale.
Products being sold are usually initial public offerings of shares or heavily commissioned investments, which investors buy by cabling money to an overseas bank account.
They are rarely issued with a record of sale and find it difficult to retrieve their money or even to get the broker who made the sale to answer their calls.
Yesterday, the Australian embassy in Bangkok was flooded with calls from nervous investors in Australia, who had bought shares with the firms raided, some having handed over amounts up to 300,000 Australian dollars.
Representatives of Bangkok's licensed broking houses were encouraged that Thai authorities had taken action against the increasing number of boiler rooms. "It enhances Thailand's reputation after being damaged by the emergence of these houses," said Mr Bob McMillen, chief executive of Seamico Securities, "but I would like to see them follow it up and target the foreign currency operators who are hitting the Thais as well".
A previous employee of a rival Bangkok boiler room doubted that the raid would send other operations underground. "They're greedy and they will keep going until they themselves are locked up. They won't even lie low for a couple of months. They are calling today, I can assure you."
Following the arrests, calls to their companies' Bangkok number were being answered with a recorded message saying that the Brinton Group was being reorganised and would reopen at a later date.
A consul official who visited the detention centre which holds the group, that includes Australians, Canadians, Filipinos, a Jamaican and a Liberian, described their mood as subdued.
