Cork Graham is one of the most popular and richest Photographer who was born on November 29, 1964 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The two were moved out of the province prison in Kien Giang to a converted French military structure located in Ho Chi Minh City. Graham’s father claimed that the intermediary who visited his son in the month of January. The intermediary “reported back that Fred was doing well. His morale was in pretty good shape and the indications were that he was getting a good, balanced diet, fish and vegetables, and any medical attention he needed.” The intermediary also told Graham’s parents about the situation in which Graham as well as Knight were housed in a room that was shuttered, measuring 16 by 16 feet which meant they did not get enough light or exercise outside.
While Graham and Knight were released in 1984, the two Thai boatman who accompanied them remained in captivity. They were finally released after 44 months in captivity when Crutchlow paid the Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok $6,000. Crutchlow said it was his “duty as an Englishman” to help them. “It was an Englishman who got them into Vietnam. If he wasn’t going to help them, then there had to be an Englishman who could.” Crutchlow planned to sell one of his London-style taxicabs to pay for the fine.
Graham’s father established a “Free Freddie Fund”, and on May 18, 1984 Graham was released after his family paid the $10,000 fine. Graham said “I feel great” when he arrived in Bangkok on his way home from Ho Chi Minh City. Knight, who had been unable to raise the money for his release, was still held. Knight had raised only $2,000 and was said to have been suffering from severe depression. Kenneth Crutchlow, a British businessman who owned a taxi business (London Transport of Sonoma) heard of the capture of Knight and donated $8,000 for Knight’s release. Knight was released on August 20.
A diplomat later described”the hunt “a hare-brained scheme.” The Washington Post described it as “dubious, since historians have never agreed whether Captain Kidd and his pirate ship, Adventure Galley, ever sailed the waters off the Indochinese coast.” “It was pretty stupid,” Graham admitted later on of the whole concept in his move to join Knight. “I couldn’t believe he was really going on this because it was really strange,” Perhaps not as “hare-brained” to others, because according to an US State Department. memo from Singapore, the US Embassy to Singapore in the morning of 0834 Zulu time on the 29th of July 1983 “Luckily, Grimley did not know or chose not to reveal the exact locations of the treasure on the island, else the Vice Consul in Singapore may have set her jib by now.”
Graham came back to America forty pounds heavier than he was when the time he left home, and his doctors confirmed that he suffered from post-traumatic-stress disorder. In the mid-to-late 1980s Graham traveled back to Central America, again as an independent photojournalist. After four years of war, he returned to Alaska to enjoy the peace of nature.
They were arrested on June 16, 1983, by Vietnamese authorities for illegally landing in Vietnam. According to a western official following the case in Hanoi, the whereabouts of Knight and Graham were unknown until late July, when it was learned they were being held in a provincial prison at Kien Giang. The Vietnamese government officially reported to British officials that they were holding the pair on September 1. In November a provincial court found them both guilty of illegally landing on Vietnamese territory and assessed each a $10,000 fine. The boat and all their equipment were confiscated.
