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