The Judiciary Police (PJ) have arrested three suspected pimps for providing a 17-year-old girl and three adult females for sex, PJ spokesman Ho Chan Nam said during a special press conference on Friday.
Ho said that the three male suspects, aged between 28 and 68, are surnamed Lo, Ha and Tang respectively, adding that both Lo and Ha are locals, while Tang and the four sex workers are from the mainland. The three men worked as a team, according to Ho.
According to Ho, during an investigation into a phone fraud case last Wednesday, PJ officers discovered that Lo had assisted sex workers in exchanging the Hong Kong dollars or patacas that they had received from their clients into yuan and transferring the money to a local bank account.
Under questioning, Ho said, Lo admitted that he was “persuaded” by a prostitute who he had got acquainted with in early 2021 to collect the earnings of other sex workers in order to exchange them into yuan. Lo told the police that he could receive HK$200 for the “currency exchange service” each time.
A PJ investigation showed that since October 2021 Lo had received nearly one million patacas from prostitutes, among which 99,000 patacas was collected from the middle of last month on 28 occasions, according to Ho, who pointed out that Lo admitted to having earned 20,000 patacas during that period, but refused to reveal the specific amount.
Based on Lo’s confession, Lo said, PJ officers were dispatched to four guestrooms of a hotel in Zape, where the officers intercepted Tang and the four prostitutes including the 17-year-old and seized HK$111,000 and 44,599 patacas in cash, as well as sex-work paraphernalia such as condoms.
The four sex workers told the police that they had been in Macau for about a week, saying that before coming to Macau to provide “sex services”, they had read an advertisement about recruiting sex workers on a website. The quartet also said that they received 1,000 to 1,800 patacas or Hong Kong dollars from their clients for each sex service, of which, they said, they handed 40 percent to Lo as instructed.
Ho said that thanks to the website, PJ officers were able to identify Ha as the one who ran the operation’s “customer service”, and later arrested him in Rua da Madre Terezina. Under questioning, Ha denied the crime and refused to cooperate with the police, Ho added.
Ho noted during the press conference that the Judiciary Police would ask the relevant government entities to arrange the removal of the website.
Lo, Ha and Tang were transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) on Friday, facing pimping charges.
Three suspected pimps are escorted by Judiciary Police (PJ) officers to a police vehicle outside the PJ headquarters in Zape on Friday. – Photo: MPDG
