Clinical check-ups
The 151 people who were taken in for questioning included prostitutes, sex service clients, a doctor and a nurse, according to Lai, who said that the doctor and nurse had carried out medical examinations of the prostitutes controlled by the gang. All the gang’s prostitutes were required to undergo regular check-ups at a local clinic, Lai said.
95,000 sex service deals
The gang, headed by mainlanders, had earnt over HK$300 million from at least 95,000 sex service transactions since 2017, Lai said.
The Judiciary Police were recently tipped off that a gang was running a prostitution racket in a spa in Taipa and launched an investigation.
During the investigation, PJ officers discovered that the gang, in collaboration with local pimps and pimps from the mainland and elsewhere, arranged for women from various places, primarily from the mainland as well as Southeast Asian and Eastern European countries, to come to Macau to work as prostitutes in the spa, according to Lai, who said that the gang’s “division of labour” was based on a clearly defined hierarchy.
“The gang used the spa as a cover for its prostitution services,” Lai said.
Some local media identified the spa as JYS Spa in Rua de Chiu Chau in Taipa.
According to Lai, the prostitutes were required to buy items used for sex services such as condoms, lubricants and mouthwashes provided by the gang. The prices paid by clients for each sex service provided ranged between about 2,588 and 4,488 patacas, depending on the ratings given by key members of the gang based on the respective prostitute’s age, looks and figure, Lai said, adding that each prostitute was paid less than 1,000 patacas for each sex service.
Sex skill testsAccording to Lai, the gang also required its prostitutes to have sex with its pimps free of charge as a way of testing their sex skills.
Lai said that the gang also required its sex workers to undergo regular check-ups at a clinic in the city centre for which they needed to pay. The clinic paid some of the check-up fees paid by the prostitutes back to key members of the gang as “commission”, according to Lai. The gang banned prostitutes who refused to submit to a check-up at the clinic from working for it, Lai said.
Blue cards
For some of the prostitutes from Vietnam, the gang applied for non-resident worker permits (“blue cards”) so that they could stay in Macau as non-resident workers in fictitious jobs such as chefs, masseuses, cleaners and even domestic helpers, according to Lai, who said the gang arranged the work permits as a way to extend the amount of time the women could stay in Macau and avoid possible police investigations.
Surrounded by a large quantity of evidence, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Lai Man Vai (right) briefs reporters in a pressroom of the PJ headquarters in Zape yesterday about the weekend raids on a prostitution racket operating out of a spa in Taipa.Photo: Iong Tat Choi
PJ officers escort the hooded prostitution racked suspects to PJ vehicles outside the PJ headquarters yesterday. Photo: Iong Tat Choi
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