Greyman Blog

Border town of Aranyaprathet

Aranyaprathet is a fairly non-descript border crossing point from Thailand into the town of Poi Pet on the Cambodian side.  It is the busiest crossing point into Cambodia and a key transit point for human traffickers.

On the evening of 13 September 2010 in Aranyaprathet, a joint operation between The Grey Man and the Royal Thai Police resulted in the rescue of four Cambodian girls on the Thai side of the border.  The girls were 14-15 years old and had been trafficked into Thailand for prostitution.

A three person Grey Man team had set up a sting operation the previous day but it fell through when the go-between became frightened and did not bring the girls he had promised.  It had been a frustrating month for the team with a number of leads ending in dead ends.

The team then changed to another target.  They had acquired video and audio surveillance of a brothel that had under-aged girls in it and called in a specialist Thai police unit.  In this brothel the girls’ rooms were padlocked and the windows covered in bars.

Bars on the windows The doors were padlocked.

After a thorough briefing between the two groups, the Grey Man operatives then re-entered the brothel with Police nearby ready to conduct a raid. 

The operatives continued their undercover roles, and once they ensured that the girls were still there, triggered a raid by the Police.  Twenty Anti-trafficking Police and three Grey Man personnel were involved in the operation.

15 year old rescued from the brothel

The mamasan (manager of the brothel) and a number of Thai males were arrested and the four girls are now in the hands of Thai government officials.

They will be moved to a government shelter in Bangkok where they will either be repatriated to Cambodia or sent to a Khmer vocational training centre.  Grey Man is looking into how to best assist the repatriation of the girls.

I would like to thank the Thai Police unit involved for their assistance.  Our team were very impressed with the level of their professionalism and our thanks also to the government of Thailand for setting up such a great unit. 

It seems that this particular specialist police unit were also impressed with The Grey Man team and intend to run further operations with us.  

Just a final worrying statistic, 46% of Cambodian kids trafficked into Thailand when interviewed said that the key figure who facilitated their trafficking was … their mother!!  Here in the West we may never understand what poverty can drive people to do but we were born lucky and safe so don’t waste time in judging these people … please just support us to help more kids.  

To this Grey Man team, consisting of former police and special forces people, thankyou for a job well done as I know how difficult the past month has been. 

John Curtis

President

Grey Man has been quietly sending people into Cambodia for the past 6 months in order to understand the child trafficking situation there and to see which NGOs and police Grey Man could work with in Phnom Penh and other cities. We like to know what we are up against before we commit Grey Man operatives to any theatre of operations. As a final exercise we sent our Director of Operations from Australia to discuss our involvement with likely partners in Cambodia. He spent some time investigating the red light areas and liaising with local NGOs (especially International Justice Mission-IJM) and the police to determine the best way for Grey Man to operate in the country.

Last Sunday night our Director of Operations, ‘Tony’ approached a moto driver (motorcycle taxi) to discuss the possibility of accessing some young girls. The moto driver said he could supply the girls and took ‘Tony’ to a brothel in the countryside outside Phnom Penh. The results were inconclusive as the girls did not appear to be underage but with Asian girls it is often difficult to tell. ‘Tony’ declined the offer of being a client and was returned to the city. A few days later the moto driver contacted him and said he had two girls available who were young, so ‘Tony’ arranged to meet with him and immediately informed the local office of International Justice Mission (IJM) who arranged for the police to assist.

The Moto driver took ‘Tony’ to a nearby hotel where he met with a young Cambodian pimp who took ‘Tony’ to one of the hotel rooms. There were no girls visible but when the Cambodian was asked how old the girls were he opened the bathroom door and a 14 year old and ten year old (yes, 10!!) came out. They were Vietnamese girls who had been trafficked into Cambodia.

!4 and 10 year old Vietnamese girls rescued from a Cambodian pimp

A price was negotiated but ‘Tony’ said he would have to get extra cash from his hotel room. This was in order to extricate himself from the room in order to confirm to the police that the girls were actually present and that they were underage.

The Cambodian agreed and as soon as ‘Tony’ left he signalled the police and IJM.  He returned to the room on the pretext of paying the money and as per arrangements the police knocked on the door of the hotel room soon after ‘Tony’ had re-entered it. The police arrested the pimp and the moto driver. The children were taken into custody and placed with a shelter run by a British NGO.  Grey Man will fund their ongoing recovery and education and investigations are continuing to snare other traffickers.

This is our first operation in Cambodia and by all accounts a great success. It received widespread coverage in the Australian media and resulted in an overwhelming response from the Australian public. Grey Man would like to thank our Director of Operations (‘Tony’), IJM, the Cambodian Police and Grey Man supporters everywhere for allowing us to do what we do best.   What’s more with Australia Day happening the day after I can think of no greater tribute to our country on our National Day than that Australians put themselves in harm’s way to rescue kids in South East Asia.  We should all be proud. Well done!

John Curtis