BRITISH MEDIA MOGUL SUES OVER THAI SEX TRAFFICKING ALLEGATIONS

BAILS WIFE ON CHILD ABDUCTION, HUMAN TRAFFICKING, AND CHILD PROSTITUTION CHARGES

  A British online newspaper publisher, whose real money-making business is in the Thai sex trade, is suing a man who has allegedly accused him of being a sex trafficker. In case 888/2567 scheduled to start tomorrow (Wednesday) in the Thai resort of Pattaya Bryan Stephen Flowers is suing Adam Ryan Howell over allegations said to have been made in a YouTube video.

This case could be controversial. Flowers is one of the biggest operators of bar-brothels in the Thai resort and now possibly Thailand. He is also a media mogul with a national news site in English and Thai and other provincial news sites in Thailand. (But his most successful is his flagship site the Pattaya News, which is often trawled by foreign tabloids.)

And Flowers has been in the middle of mafia wars in the Thai sex resort where foreign bar owners have been competing over ownership of young Thai women to feed to tourists.

Child trafficking and child prostitution charges

Further Flower’s Thai wife Punnipa Flowers is accused of the very things he is contesting.

Together with two others, an English bar manager named William Reece and Jaranya Deeppair, a cashier/mamasan. Punnipa Flowers is accused at Pattaya Provincial court of eight offences which include, human trafficking, child abduction and child prostitution.

This relates to a raid last year on the Flowers controlled Flirt Bar in Pattaya’s Soi 6 – a lane regarded as the cheapest and sleaziest end of the sex industry in Pattaya.

Thailand’s Trafficking in Persons Unit said the charges related to a 16-year-old girl who was found to have been employed at the bar.

Flowers has twenty-seven bars offering sex workers with rooms provided where the acts can take place. It would still have been illegal, even if the girl had been an adult, but local and Thai government officials turn a blind eye as the sex trade bring in billions.

Flowers, 42, from Coventry, is a career sex merchandiser. He quit his business course at Worcester University in 2007 and arrived in Thailand initially to operate a website called Pattaya Addicts, primarily for sex tourists to Soi 6. He made money from selling advertising and organised ‘tours’ of Soi 6, where most of his bars are located, and other Pattaya red light areas.

A website called the ‘Truth About the Pattaya Addicts Forum’ alleged that bar and guest house owners, who did not advertise, subsequently found very unfavourable reviews by posters on Pattaya Addicts, and that favourable reviews had been deleted.

All complainants allegedly received threats when they failed to pay up and one reported that Flowers was accompanied by a Thai who brandished a gun. I cannot vouch for the truth of the allegations. The website was terminated but the owner admitted that Flowers had complained but had only asked for the removal of his address in Coventry.

Pattaya Addicts, which boasts a membership of 180,000, led Flowers to buying his first bar called the Night Wish aided by funds from his dad and a private investor, according to his own online biography.

He then bought his first bar called the Night Wish with funds from his dad and a private investor, according to his own online biography. All his sex bars bars come under the Night Wish Group. But, as a company ,‘Night Wish’ was dissolved many years ago. And Flowers does not appear to have his name, preferring sole Thai nominees, on any of the sex businesses, which operate strictly on a cash basis and also include a law firm, a security business, and the Rage Fight Acadamy. 

In 2017 he publicly distanced himself from from the sex side of his business prior to, he said, a claim for Thai citizenship.

– I have no evidence of mongering*, owning bars on my facebook, one of my staff went through the last 7 years and removed any pictures of me in bars and with girls (I am applying for Thai citizenship later and they will be checking everything. (Bryan Flowers, Oct 7 2017)

(Urban Bictionary: MONGER – Short for whoremonger, i.e., one who frequents whores and prostitutes.
He’s a true monger, even his vacations are all to primo whorefucking destinations)

He has advertised for foreign bar managers, an o

He has advertised for foreign bar managers and sex workers on the Night Wish Facebook page.

The local foreign run English language media are Pattaya is notoriously unreliable. Foreigners start online newspapers to curry favour with local police and government officials, earn respectability and sometimes to deal with their enemies (A bit like the British national press then but without journalists!)  Flowers is no exception and makes frequent presentations to police and city officials.

 

The Pattaya People newspaper group is run by a Dane, Nils Colov, who, prior to his arrival in Thailand, was convicted and jailed for pimping in Copenhagen. Nils also rose to be leader of the ex-pat foreign police volunteers. He heavily promoted in his paper and on his news channel the property projects in Thailand of British con-man David Ames, who was jailed in 2022 for 12 years for conning investors out of over £220 million in a Carribean resort.

There was limited redress to victims in Thailand.

(Video of Ames’ Pattaya operation)

The Pattaya Times was the baby of an American called Drew Noyes, who used it for extortion. Noyes fled Thailand back to North Carolina, after being convicted and sentenced to three years jail for extortion. He had got bail and his passport back while appealing his sentence.

Neither Bryan Flowers nor Adam Judd, the ‘editorial director’ of the Pattaya News replied to requests for comment.

Adam Judd says his previous employment was in ‘Human Resources.’ Indeed, it was. He was manager of the ‘Sexy in the City’ bar in Soi 6, part of Flower’s Nightwish Group.

Only one version of the Flirt Bar raid made it to the British media. No Pattaya online newspaper mentioned that the raid related to an under-aged sex worker.

MailOnline, a voracious gobbler of unchecked stories worldwide carried this almost word for word from Pattaya websites.

Meanwhile in the mafia bar wars in Pattaya rival bars try to lure sex workers from each other’s business. This includes parking vehicles outside the bars of rivals displaying more attractive base rates for ‘hostesses’ and ‘coyotes’ and ‘PRs’ – different classes of sex workers.

Despite his claimed contacts Flowers failed in his bid to city hall to declare Soi 6 a traffic free street to stop this behaviour. Whatever happens this will be a case to watch – not least for some interesting witnesses who might surface – and maybe to discover where all the riches go.

Footnote: Since publication Adam Howell has been contacted the owner of this website. He said he was unable to comment on the current libel action but would be contesting the case ‘rigourously’.