Mr Chuvit was widely known as the “Godfather of the Thai sex industry”. He owned six “massage parlours” off a tatty stretch of motorway in northern Bangkok. But something changed, as John Sparks blogs.
It takes a particular sort of person to take everyone on and Chuvit Kamolvisit is definitely particular.
Mr Chuvit (say Chew-it), was widely known as the “Godfather of the Thai sex industry”. He owned six “massage parlours” off a tatty stretch of motorway in northern Bangkok called “Soapland” by the locals.
Prostitution is illegal is Thailand but Mr Chuvit knew how to get around the rules. His businesses offered “steamy hot shower massage” – not sex per se – and he knew how to keep the police and politicians away – or at least keep them quiet.
He told me he regularly paid them more than a $1m per month: “They need their houses and their Rolexes and their trips to the UK,” he said.
In 2003 however he fell out with the cops when they arrested him over a land dispute – Mr Chuvit wondered what he was paying for. In a dramatic change of course, he named the officers and the amounts he had bribed them. A political and media storm erupted.
In Hefner-esque fashion, the “Godfather” was challenging the “official view” of sex in Thailand. He went on national television and told viewers that “Soapland” sold sex.
“The government says we don’t have a sex business,” Mr Chuvit told me, “but we do have one. I owned massage parlours and they were a sex business. I admit that.”
His Damascene conversion from underworld brothel tycoon to Thailand’s foremost anti-corruption campaigner is more difficult to get one’s head around. He entered the political fray as a man of the streets, prepared to confront some of Thailand’s “uncomfortable truths”. His decision was helped no doubt by the fact that he is supported by a small, parlour-powered fortune.
He unsuccessfully ran twice for the governorship of Bangkok and briefly held a seat in parliament before being disbarred on a technicality. He didn’t give up and in Thailand’s recent election, Mr Chuvit and his party won a million votes, four seats and a national platform for his anti-corruption message.
Why has he seized on corruption? Well he certainly knows a lot about it but more importantly, his new role comes with something he didn’t get a whole lot of when he ran the parlours – respect.
He may have outed the “sex business” but nobody really thanked him for it. Doing something about kickbacks and bribes and Thailand’s deeply entrenched patronage system will win him plenty of new admirers however.
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