John Curtis - The Grey Man: My undercover war against the child sex trade in Asia

John Curtis was born in Wollongong, New South Wales, and is a former Australian Army commando and officer. He is also an expert in human survival and a graduate of The Tracker school in the United States. He has been a guest lecturer at the Woodlore school in the United Kingdom, the Ragnarok Primitive Skills Gathering in Sweden, the RAAF Combat Survival Wing, Townsville, and has taught survival to the military from fourteen countries. He has worked for television as a consultant to Discovery Channel and reality TV programs. In 2004 he went to Thailand on a promise to his daughter to rescue children from brothels and, from that, founded The Grey Man organisation in 2008. He lives in Brisbane with his beautiful Japanese wife and his lovely daughter.

First published 2011 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney

Copyright John Curtis 2011

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced ortransmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similarorganisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage andretrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Curtis, John Alex.

The grey man / John Curtis, with Tony Park

9781742610504 (pbk.)

Curtis, John Alex.
The Grey Man (Organisation).
Human trafficking-Asia-Prevention.
Child trafficking-Asia-Prevention.
Child slaves-Asia-Prevention.

Park, Tony, 1964

364.137092

Typeset in 13/16 pt Granjon by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane
Printed by McPherson's Printing Group

Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

These electronic editions published in 2011 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

Copyright John Curtis 2011
The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Curtis, John Alex
The grey man / John Curtis, with Tony Park
364.137092

Adobe eReader format 978-1-74262-758-8
EPub format 978-1-74262-760-1
Online format 978-1-74262-757-1

The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Typeset in 13/16 pt Granjon by Post pre-press group, Brisbane

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To my darling daughter
and my wonderful, supportive wife, Misao

To all the Grey Men and Women
You are special people

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This book is a personal account of my experiences in setting up The Grey Man organisation. It is as I remember it and the opinions expressed are entirely my own. Some names, locations and minor details of people have been changed to disguise their identities.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

Liberation

Chiang Mai, Thailand, December 2004

It was cool inside the nondescript, drab-looking building, a relief after the oppressive heat of the day outside. The place was on a backstreet, away from the loud go-go bars around Thapae Gate or the mainstream brothels in Santi Tam. There were no flashing neon signs, no bar girls hawking sex and themselves and luring gullible western tourists. This was a place of business, pure and simple. Illegal business.

I passed through the front door, stepping over a metal lip directly into a courtyard where three working girls sat eating noodles. They paused and looked at me, clearly bored but momentarily feigning interest, as Tam, my tuk tuk driver and go-between, spoke to the pimp. When Tam told the middle-aged Thai that I was looking for a young girl very young the women around the table went studiously back to their noodles.

The pimp nodded. I followed him to another part of the house, down a hallway smelling of mildew not quite suppressed by harsh disinfectant. A door was opened to a kind of anteroom, which in turn led on to the bedroom. Inside was a single bed, and in the corner a simple bedside table. I was told to sit in the anteroom and wait while Tam took his leave and the pimp went off to fetch the girl.

When the pimp returned a few minutes later, he ushered the girl into the room ahead of him. She wore bright red lipstick and a touch of blue eye shadow but she was only a child. She looked like a little girl who'd been experimenting with her mother's or older sister's makeup, trying to make herself look more mature. Ironic, I thought, as her youth was her greatest selling feature, and the reason for her value to the man behind her.

I tried to speak to the girl and found out she spoke virtually no English, and my Thai was fairly basic. Her name was Kem and the pimp had told me she belonged to the Shan hill tribe, from the Thai-Burma border areas.

How old are you? I asked her.

Si sip sam thirteen, the pimp interjected.

I looked to Kem, and she nodded in confirmation.

I told the pimp I was happy with her and had him leave us together. Kem and I conversed in halting Thai for about half an hour.

I don't want to have sex with you just talk. Understand?

She shrugged and nodded.

I knew not to leap right in and try to get her out during our first meeting. I'd learned from my previous experience that Kem would probably be suspicious of me, and perhaps even dubious about the merits of running away. We sat in the anteroom and talked about our families. I told her about my daughter, Emma, and her life in Australia, where she would soon be starting school. I had already paid the pimp 800 baht (about A$30), but before I left I gave Kem another 200 baht for herself. I asked if I could see her again and she smiled and said yes.

I went to my Thai language teacher that evening and asked her to help me write out a series of questions I would ask Kem when I next saw her. If she could read, this might make communication easier between us, or at least I'd be able to read out the questions slowly in Thai and hopefully make my intentions clearer to her. She couldn't read, so I had limited options.

A few days later, Tam took me back to the brothel, this time at night. A guy was sitting in the foyer who looked like an enforcer of some type. This was new. He wore black trousers and a white singlet and when he folded his heavily tattooed arms I could see hard ropes of muscle. I smiled at the pimp, who recognised me. I wanted him to get used to me as a regular visitor, as I didn't know how many times I would need to visit before Kem would agree to my plan.

Once in Kem's room I took out my list of questions and smoothed out the paper on the single bed. Do you like it here? I asked her in Thai.

No, she said. Mai chop not like.

Do you want to stay here?

No.

Are you allowed to leave here if you want, to go out in town?