Transvestite led Thai cops to hunted Canadian

By Ed Cropley and Nopporn Wong-Anan

BANGKOK (Reuters) - After a three-year hunt involving cutting edge technology and police on three continents, it was dogged detective work and a Thai transvestite that finally led officers to Canadian pedophile suspect Christopher Neil.

Thai police Colonel Paisal Luesomboon, who arrested Neil in the dusty town of Nakhon Ratchasima, 250 km (150 miles) northeast of Bangkok, said the 32-year-old knew the game was up and surrendered without a struggle.

"He said he knew he was on an Interpol arrest warrant," Paisal told Reuters. The only other words Neil spoke were to confirm his name.

His companion at the time of his arrest was a 25-year-old "katoey" -- the Thai word for transvestite or transsexual -- a friendship that proved key to the manhunt.

After an alert from Interpol, Police Lieutenant Colonel Phanthana Nutchanart sent his men to trawl transvestite hangouts in Bangkok's Patpong red-light district and the seaside town of Pattaya, infamous as a haven for misfits and perverts.

After seeing a picture of Neil taken by security cameras on his arrival at Bangkok airport a week ago, transvestites in Pattaya said they had seen him with a 25-year-old cross-dresser called Ohm.

But the pair had already fled the eastern seaboard town, dubbed "The Old Whore of Asia" since the days of the Vietnam War, when American GIs would come in their thousands in search of euphemistically phrased "R&R".

Police traced Ohm's real name on Thailand's national citizens database, found he came from the northeastern province of Chaiyaphume and -- crucially -- got his telephone number.