Charity boss 'faked sex slave rescues'

The head of an Australian charity has resigned after he was accused of faking the rescue of hill tribe children from sex slavery in Thailand.

The high-profile Grey Man charity claims to rescue victims as young as 10 and 12 from sex trafficking in Asia using a team of ex-soldiers and police, The Age reports.

But police say the charity, headed by former Australian army commando Sean McBride, lied about rescuing 21 children from a hill tribe in northern Chiang Rai province.

Police from the Chiang Mai-based transnational crime unit say the children never left their homes, continued to attend school and were negatively impacted by publicity from the reported rescue.

The Department of Special Investigation is now looking into the claims.

But Mr McBride told The Age the charity, founded in 2007, never changed reports, "except to make them more readable and media-oriented".

He said the controversy surrounding the charity was driven by corruption and vested interested.

Mr McBride said the board decided he should step down because "personal issues" between him and people in Thailand were interfering with the organisation’s operations.

Chiang Mai police cut ties with the charity after a flurry of claims was made against it, and pending the outcome of the investigation.

Grey Man's former head of investigations claims the charity lied about the ages of victims and exaggerated the success of operations.

"Sean [Mr McBride] told me younger girls are most interesting for donors," said the Thailand-born man, who did not want to be identified.

26 Mar 2012

Within charities, fraud can easily be committed and frequently does.

Since charities are a government cash cow, there is deliberately no inquiries into the legitimacy of many of them.

Charities focusing on elderly care or multiculturalism are amongst the offender which the government has chosen to turn a blind eye.