When Gordon’s problems escalated he started to receive “funny” phone calls and kept a log of numbers and times etc, so when my “funny” phone calls started over Christmas 2009 and the New Year I knew what to do, I think it must be the Sri Lankan way to try and intimidate any one who fights back and they think anonymous phone calls work, the police do take intimidation via the phone seriously and deal with it accordingly assuming that is that the sim card is not stolen, I believe that only 2 of the 5 unknown numbers that called my phone are malicious the other 3 being genuine “wrong numbers” the 2 baddies have called 37 times between them in the 2 weeks since and including Christmas Day, At first I answered the calls but when I realised what was happening I just cut the calls off but changed my mind and answered the call but just left the phone, then I remembered my tape recorder and got it ready when the next spate of calls started, when the phone rang and I could see it was one of the bad numbers, I switched on the tape, answered the call, put phone on loudspeaker and waited till they hung up, as luck had it one call was from a female (1st time a woman has spoken) who said that I was going to lose, so whoever it was must have been referring to the court cases, and they must also be associates of Saman most likely relatives of his wife, a man using the other number has said that I’m going to get cut (stabbed) also said was that I “go with girls” and my wife is a prostitute, even if the accusations had an iota of truth in them what good bringing any such issues to light at the trial will do is beyond me, as they have nothing to do with Saman’s defence. My lawyer seems quite happy by events and wants me to make sure the CID are informed before the court cases start as this sort of intimidation is bad for Saman’s case, Added on 12th January 2010, the calls are getting to be a serious problem now but have most of one long call on tape so I will be informing the CID and changing my sim card, on 19th Jan a miss call was recieved from one of the bad numbers, there was just the noise of children playing in the background, I am convinced now that my name is on the sim and that the sim is not stolen, CID are busy due to impending government elections
Added on 18th Feb 2010,
Though I have changed my phone number I still check the old number, I have set up ALERT which lists all missed calls including multiple calls from one caller, and strange to say there were 7 missed calls from Saman’s wife’s number on the 13th Feb,
Found this bit of phone info whilst looking at pages on Sri Lankan law
Question No 4
If you are often treated or harassed by nuisance Telephone calls,
Answers
i. Dial 1231 & complain the matter
ii. Take steps to inform the relevant Telephone Regulatory Officer
iii. You can lodge a complaint at the police station
iv. After making the complaint to police, if the identity of the persons who gave the call is revealed, summon the complainant to the police station and inquire the matter
Don’t think it wont happen to you, Out of the 22 couples or individuals I mention. (2 being unknown to me) 5 have had land or land and house stolen, at least 5 have either lost or given tuk tuks, 1 has been shot at, 1 has been assaulted, 1 has had house destroyed by fire, (hearsay) 4 have had their homes abused in their absence, 19 have been overcharged, (21 assuming the two I don’t know were treated the same) and only one says he’s never had problems. and as this one person is the only one to say he has never had a problem similar to those I mention I think its fair to say he’s unique as I know more people than mentioned here and all have had problems.
Saman wanted to find me a new wife after my wedding, he suggested I should leave the very recent new wife and let him fix me up with another, (Seeing as he arranged to marry my stepdaughter whilst he was and is married to Chathurika I think it must be possible to have multiple wife’s,) of course all of this was because he was seeing his well made plan slip into beach boy folk law, and any “new wife” would of course be under Saman’s control.
Saman must have been opening my bank statements, I only got 2 statements all the time I stayed at Saman’s house, when I started to worry about my balance Saman would insist I was not as poor as I was claiming to be, it is now obvious that Saman intended to take every penny I had.
Despite the apparent believe that all non nationals are infinitely rich, there must be realisation that that is not the case as many of the beach boy type hope that their victim will become low or run out of money, and therebymaking it easier to secure their ill-gotten gains, indeed many non nationals do give in to such tactics in order to avoid wasting more money.
When my money had almost gone the entire family seemed to be “testing the water” by asking me to make loans to various people who would make generous repayments, I had some money left and I believe that was what they were after.
Saman lived quite a lavish lifestyle (for a poor beach boy) with my money and must have been aggrieved that there was no more coming his way as he knew I did have some, he damaged the three wheeler one night (drunk) and it went for repair, it was gone for over 2 months awaiting payment and eventually his mother in law pawned her gold to get the vehicle recovered, or at least that was what I was told, I think I was supposed to feel sorry for poor old M.I.L and use the last of my money to get her gold back, had I done so I’m sure that would have been when the family would get me deported.. Greedily trying to get my last rupee should ultimately be this grasping families downfall.
Fortunately a criminal trial will not cost me any more than my bus fares and daily sustenance as it’s the “state” that is prosecuting Saman, I’m not sure how my reactions will be when I watch Saman’s criminal trial but I do hope he gets a severe custodial sentence and believe his wife and the lawyer who prepared the deeds should also be sentenced, I have to drive thoughts away of how it could have been and remember the full evil intent of his actions whilst making out to be a friend.
There are many incidents that come to mind from time to time, and here are some money stories that need to be told,
As it was to be expected I was constantly forking out for building materials as things became needed, On a few occasions I had paid in advance for timber as the Sawmill had to cut to order and this was always done via Saman, when Saman asked for money to pay for timber required for the upstairs frames I was not surprised as this was genuinely needed, however the timber never materialised and I asked Saman to get a refund from the sawmill as finances were getting poor and the remaining building work was put on hold, needless to Say Saman always had a good reason why the money could not be refunded, I asked that the timber paid for be delivered to the house but again there were reasons that this never happened, I was aware at this time that all was not as it should be so was not surprised by this, but I never knew till later what had really happened.
Repaying me with my own money.
There was another occasion when Saman asked me to pay the painter some money, I thought this was suspicious as it was an extra payment, however I handed the money over to the painter, 2 days later Saman was happy to tell me he had some money to give me as part repayment on a loan, it was of course the exact same amount and notes I had handed to the painter, (2 of the notes had been marked quite distinctly and I recognised the markings)
We had been to order materials from a hardware supplier and I kept out of the way to avoid paying tourist price and left Saman to do the transaction as per usual, the bill was high but not worryingly so but I was confused by the receipt, though written in Sinhala the numbers are the same as UK and I wanted to know what it was that I had paid for 80 of, Saman was not very helpful blaming the writing and telling me it was for 8 concrete posts (very expensive posts) I asked a few other people and sure enough the poor writing was blamed but someone else who must have been unaware of Saman’s scams (or not a friend) told me it was for 80 bags of cement, cement I did not need, Saman was very unhappy with me and my enquiries but I insisted we went back to the shop and sorted things out, Saman then had other business, borrowed a motorbike and left, I had an idea what he was doing and on his return he was happy for us both to go to the shop, when we arrived I accompanied Saman to the counter and he explained the problem (of course he had also been there 30 minutes earlier) without any quibbling the hardware shop refunded my money, Saman put on a good act of deploring the actions of the dishonest shopkeeper,
wedding
When my stepdaughter visited Sri Lanka for the 2nd time Saman was there to take care of her, he arranged accommodation, excursions and more, seemingly much was done at his expense but in retrospect it would be true to say that it was money he had siphoned from me, Saman took my stepdaughter to Yala where he had arranged for them to get married, everything was ready, the ceremony and the wedding Sari’s were just waiting for the “bride to be” to say yes, obviously she said no. Saman is married and has a daughter. I cant work out Saman’s motives for getting (illegally) married, and cant see what he had to gain but the fact that he was prepared to get married shows how much respect he has for his wife and how much regard he has for the law.
