Arcade boss's fear of Eastern European scam gang

9:09am Tuesday 13th May 2008

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AN amusement arcade boss says his staff are living in fear of reprisals after police failed to catch a gang of Eastern European thugs.

The gang tried to fleece more than £1,000 from Graham Rawlingson's Southend seafront amusement arcade in a gaming machine scam.

Mr Rawlingson says he tipped off police the men were to return to Fantasia Amusement Arcade, hoping they would arrest them.

He is furious officers left a marked police car outside in Eastern Esplanade, effectively warning the gang they'd been rumbled.

Soon afterwards, he says the casino started getting threatening phone calls.

"A marked squad car parked right out the front," he said. "Of course, the men didn't show up and a couple of hours later, we started getting phone calls.

"We are sitting down here frightened and waiting to see what will happen. We don't know what these guys are going to do or what they are capable of. How am I supposed to protect my staff?"

The gang had found a way of getting free credit on slot machines and ran up £1,280 of credits on Wednesday afternoon.

The gang tried to arrange to come back and collect the money, so Mr Rawlingson called the police.

Police spokesman Heather Turner declined to comment on the case, other than to say: "We are taking this incident seriously and will be investigating."