January 13, 2024
Prostitution syndicate ready to package foreign women RM10,000 in Ipoh busted
Police arrested 141 people, 117 of whom were foreign women, in raids around Ipoh, on Friday.
IPOH: A prostitution syndicate and entertainment center that provided packages for foreign women for up to RM10,000 a night was busted after being raided by the Immigration Department in a Special Operation here on Friday.
The operation which started at 11pm involving two prostitution dens and three karaoke entertainment centers around Ipoh, immigratuib arrested 141 people with 117 foreign women, 14 foreign men while another 10 locals are believed to be the caretakers of the premises.
The Deputy Director General of the Immigration Operations Division, Jafri Embok Taha, said that the detained women consisted of 52 Chinese nationals, 41 Vietnamese nationals, 21 Thai nationals, two Indonesian nationals and one Lao national aged between 18 and 36 years old.
According to him, all of them were found to be involved in the syndicate which has been operating for the past year by offering sex services and customer service girls (GRO).
"The investigation found that only 58 of the detained foreigners had travel documents including social visit passes, special temporary work visit passes and study passes that were still valid while the others did not have valid documents to be in the country.
"All of them are detained under the Immigration Act 1959/63, the Passport Act 1966 and the Immigration Regulations 1963 and will be taken to the Full Detention Depot for further action.
"While 10 local citizens will be investigated under Section 56(1)(d) of the Immigration Act 1959/63 for the offense of protecting illegal immigrants," he said in a press conference at the Perak Immigration Office, Ministry of Home Affairs (KDN) Complex near Meru Raya in here on Saturday.
Jafri Embok said that an investigation found that customers who booked a room at the entertainment center were charged between RM800 and RM10,000 depending on the room category, with foreign women booking RM150 for 1 hour.
He said that booking through phone calls only targeted regular customers and was found to be able to make a profit of more than RM24,000 per month.
"As for the prostitution premises, the syndicate promotes foreign women by using their photos through the Telegram and WhatsApp applications.
"The selected women will be managed by the caretaker of the premises and sent to the room provided for a fee of between RM200 to RM500 while for ' outcall girls ' the charge to be paid by the customer is between RM800 to RM1,000.
"This payment transaction is through cash or online before the foreign woman is handed over to the customer," he said.
He said that the raid by the Intelligence and Special Operations Division of the Putrajaya Immigration Headquarters and the Special Tactical Team (PASTAK) also seized a number of condoms, sex equipment, 12 mobile phones, towels, closed circuit camera (CCTV) equipment, time recorder cards, 58 passports of various countries and cash of RM14,155.
"During the raid, there were foreigners who tried to run and hide on the roof and in secret rooms specially built to obscure the authorities, but all these efforts were successfully thwarted," he said
