While investigating his whereabouts, police discovered a woman, Wilawan Emsawat, who is accused of having intimate relationships with several senior monks and then blackmailing them with compromising material.

At least nine abbots and senior monks involved in the scandal have been disrobed and cast out of the monkhood, police said.

Wilawan Emsawat has caused chaos in Thailand with her sordid affairs with several monks, and then subsequent extortion, which she has finally broken her silence about