Chuwit Kamolvisit

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Chuwit Kamolvisit aka Davis Kamol (Thai: ชูวิทย์ กมลวิศิษฎ์, born August 29, 1961) is a Thai politician and, formerly, the country's biggest massage parlor owner. After he was arrested in 2003, he went public about his repeated bribe payments to hundreds of police officers. He then sold some of his parlors, formed his own political party and ran for Bangkok governor in August 2004, coming in third. In 2005 he was elected for a four-year term to the Thai House of Representatives (สภาผู้แทนราษฎร - Sapha Phuthaen Ratsadon), but in 2006 the Constitution Court removed him from parliament.

Kamolvisit is the son of a Hong Kong-born Chinese father and a Thai mother.

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[edit] Business and allegations

Chuwit controls the Davis Group which owns six luxurious massage parlors near Ratchadaphisek Road in Bangkok (Copacabana, Victoria's Secret, Honolulu, Hi Class, Emmanuelle and Julianna), employing some 600 women. The Davis Group's holdings also include the Davis Hotel and shopping mall on Sukhumvit Soi 24. Yearly revenues have been estimated to be about 1 thousand million baht per year.

The parlors mainly target wealthy Thai customers and operate in a grey area of the law: massage parlors are legal, but prostitution businesses are not. In the parlors, some women wait behind a glass window, others wait in a lounge area or can be viewed via closed-circuit TV. Once the (typically male) customer has chosen a woman, they retreat to a room where the customer is washed and bathed and the masseuse performs a foam massage with her nude body, normally followed by sex.[1] Prices range from 2000 to 5000 Baht for a two hour session. In one interview, Chuwit claimed to be ignorant about the going-ons in the rooms; in another he admitted that prostitution takes place.

In January 2003, Chuwit was accused of having hired some 600 men to raze and bulldoze several bars and shops on "Sukhumvit Square", one of his plots of land at Sukhumvit Soi 10 in Bangkok, in an apparent attempt to clear the land of low rent tenants so that it could be developed. The tenants believed that they had valid leases from another company, and were not informed of the raid that took place early on a Sunday morning. A public outcry ensued. Chuwit was arrested and spent a month in jail. He denied the charges and was released on bail.

Afterwards, angry that police would dare to touch him, he publicly released the amounts of bribes he had regularly paid in the past, along with names of some of the receiving police officers. At one point he put the total amount of bribes at 200 million Baht over 10 years, at another he mentioned payments of 12 million Baht per month. He also claimed that "VIP" police officers were bribed with free service in his parlors (an allegation later confirmed in an interview by some prostitutes.[1]) An investigation ensued, and eventually several officers were suspended or demoted. Chuwit also accused his prison wardens of having accepted bribes from him.

Shortly after these revelations, Chuwit disappeared for two days. Afterwards he claimed to have been abducted and abused by police; others alleged that he had staged his own abduction.

Chuwit's parlors were raided, some of his accounts frozen, and he was charged with procuring minors for prostitution, when three girls aged under 18 but over 15 were found in one of his parlors. He was acquitted of the charge in June 2004; the court found that the girls had presented fake IDs and Chuwit could not have been expected to detect the fraud. Also in June, Chuwit sold three of his parlors, saying that police harassment had made operation of the parlors very difficult for him.

The leading English language Thai newspaper The Nation chose Chuwit, along with Pornthip Rojanasunand and Chote Wattanachet, as persons of the year for 2003.

In an interview in February 2004, he claimed that he had paid members of the Thai police to clear his Sukhumvit Soi 10 lot; when the issue became a public affair, the police had demanded more money, which he refused. Then the police turned against him, and he retaliated with his bribery revelations.[1]

In July 2006, after a three-year trial, Chuwit and 130 associates were acquitted in the case resulting from the razing of the bar area; one corporate lawyer was sentenced to 8 months in jail for having incited the Military Corps Of Engineers to destroy the businesses.[2] Chuwit converted the area on Sukhumvit Soi 10 into a public park named Chuwit Park or Chuvit Garden for about 100 million baht.[3]

[edit] Political career

Chuwit, who holds an MBA from a San Diego university, formed his own political party, First Thai Nation, in September 2003. In April 2004 he announced that he would run for governor of Bangkok. He intended to spend about 20 million Baht on the campaign, with corruption in police and government being his main campaign topic. The Bangkok governor elections took place on August 29, 2004; Chuwit came in third, with roughly 300,000 votes, or about 16% of the vote.

For the 2005 legislative elections, Chuwit merged his party into the conservative Chart Thai Party and successfully ran as a party list candidate, becoming a member of parliament.

In May 2005 he started a weekly call-in radio show during which he listens to complaints from the general public.

However in January 2006, the Constitution Court remove his MP status, as he does not fit the rules for being MP. The rule was the candidate has to be a party's member at least 90 days before the general election.[4]

[edit] See also

[edit] Sources

  1. ^ a b c The brothel king's revenge, The Guardian, 21 February 2004
  2. ^ Chuwit avoids conviction, The Nation, 14 July 2006
  3. ^ A New Park and a Mall Facelift, Bangkok Dazed, 24 July 2006
  4. ^ Chuwit ruled out as MP by top court, The Nation, 27 January 2006

[edit] External links

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