I hijacked some bank accounts a few years ago and I am not sorry I did it. This was when my house had evolved into a type of drop-in centre for Thai women who needed a place to stay.

They were all nice and quiet and were no trouble really. They helped with many odd jobs (nothing too seamy) and it was fine.

A thing that continued to puzzle me was that they invariably came with funds but many became broke in a short time. They?d bring gifts of bottles of Drambuie for example or huge blocks of chocolate.

I became curious of what they really did to earn money. I thus made it my quest to find out more about their lives.

Many of these young women helped with children?s homes, HIV charities and even helped build boats and engines after the tsunami. Others, however, worked at discos in Malaysia.
The latter group would be introduced to ?customers? where they would charge 2000 baht for a night?s fee. They received just 1000 baht for their troubles.

Now the Malaysian police are not as obliging as they are in Thailand and prostitution is severely discouraged.

Any female found on the street late at night is stopped and her handbag searched. If she is in possession of an inordinate amount of money, then she is arrested, fined and deported.

Naturally, like every problem a remedy was quickly found. The organisers of aforementioned transactions are usually, to quote a girl who stayed with me, ?nice men in suits.? They provide the girls with a bank account and ATM card and their fee is transferred into their accounts.

They are encouraged to save money. When their visa expires and they have to leave, the woman invariably find that as soon as they cross the border and check their accounts the money has magically gone.

When the women are in these foreign countries, they are tourists and therefore can?t open an account. The ?nice men? therefore open accounts for them but they also close their accounts for them removing all the women?s earnings just before they leave; three months of slavery for nothing.

I have friends in Malaysia, and on one occasion I went to see them. We decided to open an account in a company?s name and any woman who was lured to the vice area was contacted, informed of the scam and advised to secretly transfer her funds into the safe account.
The account was run by the women themselves, and so far there have been no slip ups. I also have friends in other countries as far away as Taiwan who have also opened up safe money routes for these Thai women.

It sure was annoying for the suits to have me loot their evil accounts and apparently it caused much fighting among themselves. Not long ago, I was warned that there would be retribution and for me to be careful, but luckily they have still worked out my involvement in the matter.