Last December they were enjoying one of the most lavish office Christmas parties ever seen in Bangkok, with free-flowing champagne at a top nightclub, all paid for upfront and in cash.

Seven months later 40 of them are sharing a 30-by-30-feet cell, sleeping head-to-toe and bathing out of buckets.

Around 40 of the 78 foreign nationals convicted and fined for work permit and visa violations after raids on two coldcalling share operations in Bangkok last Thursday pace the floor wondering how long it will be before they are deported and if they will be banned from returning to the Kingdom.

The one-hour visiting time at Bangkok's main immigration detention centre is a welcome diversion, the front cage-gate crowded with visitors pushing shopping bags full of snacks and drinks between the bars.

Smartly-dressed Thai girls stand here and there crying as their boyfriends inside console them, most of the detainees stripped down to their boxer shorts to cope with the heat.

Michael Lavin from Wicklow, crouching on the tiled floor among his former colleagues at the Brinton Group - one of the two "share-ramping" firms accused of defrauding overseas investors mostly from Australia and New Zealand - hopes he will not be blacklisted.

"I'm one of those guys who loves Thailand so I hope I'll be able to come back," he said.

Mr Lavin argues the reporting of the activities of the Brinton Group and Benson Dupont International are greatly exaggerated and he contends it was a legitimate operation.

"I saw share certificates coming in and out of there all the time," he says of the organisation he worked with for six months after meeting one director in a Bangkok bar.

Mr Lavin's greatest complaint is not cramped conditions or the uncertainty of the situation but the excessive prices paid for cigarettes.

"I just want to get home," said one of the 10 Americans also convicted.

"I was doing this in Phuket for 1 1/2 years before I came to Bangkok six months ago to work with these guys and this would never have happened there.

"You had one shop in a small island and everyone who had to be was paid off," the tele-marketer said, referring to the rumoured practice of unlicensed broking firms paying "protection" money to keep operating.

An Irish consular official confirmed on Saturday that all detainees were in good health and being well cared for, with the nine Irish having been provided legal representation privately.