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JOHOR BARU: They use social media to entice customers to choose girls they want, and they even offer “credit facilities” to regular customers.
Their rates typically range from RM190 to RM650 depending on the packages clients book, and they can indulge their pleasures in special rooms in budget hotels or send the girls to the client’s location for a “small” transportation fee of RM20 to RM50.
Police discovered this union when they arrested 13 key members along with 31 prostitutes in a series of raids on five budget hotels in the city.
Johor Police Chief Comm Datuk Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay said the prostitution ring used Wechat, Michat and WhatsApp to promote women from Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.
“They operate 24 hours a day and charge between 190 and 650 RM,” he said, adding that the union had been operating since 2018.
He said the arrests began on August 27 when a team of Bukit Aman officers together with Johor police arrested eight members of the local union and detained 12 women: nine Indonesian and three Vietnamese.
“On September 2, we raided a few more hotels and arrested five union members, including a woman, and 19 other women, 18 of whom are Vietnamese and one Thai,” he said during a press conference here.
Since then, all the suspects, aged between 19 and 63, have been sent to preventive detention.
Police also seized a variety of items such as condoms, mobile phones, cash, massage oil and lubricants in the raids.
Police are now in contact with their counterparts in other states and in Singapore to determine if the union has ties outside of Johor.
Comm Ayob urged the city councils to carry out inspections in all the economic hotels of the city to verify if the rooms had been modified for vice.
During the first eight months of this year, the police carried out 337 raids under Ops Noda and arrested more than 1,780 people, including 768 locals and 1,019 foreigners.
Comm Ayob said that the 898 women arrested were from China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and South Korea.
He urged anyone with information about such activities to contact the Johor Police Hotline at 07-225 4074.
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