Published in Marie Claire, SleazeNation (UK) and Farang Magazine

Chuwit Kamolvisit is one of Thailand’s best-known celebrities. He fills newspapers and magazines and appears on national television every day. He is charismatic and media friendly. But Chuwit is not a pop star or an actor.
Chuwit is a sex king.
He is the king of the largest sex industry on the planet. For the last eight years Chuwit has owned a string of high-class massage parlors, which have made him one of Thailand’s richest men.
But the 42 year old is playing a dangerous game. Since he recently went public on how many pribes he has paid to the Bangkok authorities, he has been jailed, kidnapped, drugged and threatened. His assets have been seized. His employees have been raped and arrested for prostitution by Thai police in sting operations.
Now, after an illustrious and controversial decade in the entertainment business, Chuwit has decided to candidate in the up-coming elections for the new governor of Bangkok and to fight the country’s biggest problem – endemic corruption.
“I grew up in Bangkok. My father is a Chinese from Hong Kong and my mother is a Thai. About ten years ago, I heard that massage parlors make a lot of money. So I opened one. I started paying the police from the first month I operated.”

Chuwit looks like Burt Reynolds and talks the talk. He is charming, charismatic and has a great sense of irony and moment. He lights a cigarette and laughs, “Now I have six massage parlors in Bangkok. The normal room rate is 2000B (50$US) for two hours. I make more money than a hotel.“
With police protection assured by a steady flow of cash, Chuwit, the newcomer to Bangkok’s sex industry, went from strength to strength.
Last year the bubble burst. Unidentified men sealed off a shopping plaza on Thanon Sukhumvit, Bangkok’s busiest street and, with intimidation and bulldozers, destroyed 500 businesses overnight. The landlord – Chuwit.
“The police told me that I had to pay because I owned the land. So I paid them almost 10 million Baht. The police asked me for 3 more million and I said, ‘for what?’ And then I was arrested.”
Chuwit spent a month in jail.
“I went to jail for a month and in that month I paid 300.000  (7500$US) because I tried to make my life comfortable. I slept in a big bed, took a shower in the room, I ate good food, I could sign a cheque and I could have more visiting time than anybody else. And I paid 5000 Baht (120$US) for a plate of rice. Imagine that.”
With his back against the wall, and in court on a multitude of charges including the alleged employment of underage girls, Chuwit published lists of police officers he had allegedly been paying millions in bribes for many years. The revelations surprised no one but they opened a can of worms spilled its contents across the front pages of the press for a couple of months.

Chuwit insists he paid millions to many policemen in many different precincts. Trays of Rolex watches and plastic bags full of cash allegedly changed hands. Chuwit has the timing of an actor and he divulges the dirt on the powers that be with the skill of a seasoned stripper. He chooses his backdrops (police stations, hospitals, Parliament) as carefully as his shirts. The Thais, long used to abuses of power by the authorities, have been lapping up his every word, every movement and PR stunt.

Chuwit presents himself as a symptom rather than a cause for Thailand’s double standards and tries to establish any link, no matter how tenuous, between his own situation and deeper problems in Thai society.
”We need someone who can stand up and say something true. When I mentioned the initial names they always said ‘oh no no, I don’t know Mr Chuwit.’ Nobody knows me. I tried to say ‘I know where you live. I know you like my close friend.’ When they heard that I tried to fight, they just disappeared.”

The police enquiry into corruption since Chuwit’s revelations could find no evidence of bribery. Nevertheless, several high-ranking officers were transferred to inactive posts, a common procedure to avoid prosecution for police in Thailand. Months later, not a single policeman has been fired.

This summer Chuwit Kamolvisit is a serious contender for the governorship of Bangkok. His face already graces billboards across the city, berating people to fight government corruption. Next year he plans to contest the general elections.
Chuwit sees the corruption on every level of society, right to the top. As we talk he points at the news on the TV in front of us. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is shown stepping out of his bullet-proof bus.
“See that guy, he is a politician, but he is also an ex-cop and an ex-business man. So he knows how it is. Before he sent out the satellite he paid more than 100 million and he had receipts like mine. I have no receipts. I make my business comfortable, convenient.”
Newspapers, NGOs and foreign observers share Chuwit’s opinion that Thailand is fast returning to the bad old days of dictatorship. Even the king demanded more accountability amongst police in his recent birthday speech.
“Everybody is afraid to talk and everybody believes I paid the police. Why? Everybody pays, same as me. I try to say to society, ‘we should talk, we should complain.’ If you eat something and it tastes bad, you complain. That’s what I try to say. You have to have a new culture, you say something when there is something bad.”

Chuwit accuses the Prime Minister and his colleagues of the same type of corruption he once fuelled himself, “I admit I paid under the table. And Thaksin knows I paid because he paid the money when he did business. But he doesn’t admit it. People are fed up with this government, they realize that it is totally corrupt. I have the experience to offer them an alternative. I am not a clean guy, but I know how dirty politicians are, how little they care about real people. I don’t know whether I can be a great governor, but I know the other candidates will not be and I can try to do something about corruption. I am a single issue party. Bangkok loses millions of Baht a year because of corruption”

Statements like these have assured the sex parlor tycoon national stardom. Despite his seedy businesses, many Thais quietly sympathize with the man who talks tough on corruption.
When Chuwit claims the police abducted him – he gets a headline. When he takes the bus after having his assets seized, he gets a headline. He has written three autobiographies, and he performs stand up comedy routines. He appears as interview guest on talk shows.
“The radio stations won’t let me talk. They have a letter from the government sent to every station - don’t let Chuwit talk on the radio. We have passed 14 October, the 30th anniversary (of the bloody fall of a military government). And now we are back in the future. They close my eyes, they shut my mouth. They want Thai people to say, yes yes yes, yes ok. There is real danger for the Thai people.” Continued...