A high-class sex ring run by a Korean expatriate in Viet Nam and specializing in supplying prostitutes to foreigners, especially Koreans, was uncovered in Tan Binh yesterday. Sixty-three persons involved in the ring were arrested and put in temporary custody for further investigations.
Early yesterday morning, the HCMC Investigative Police Bureau against Criminals of Social Order (PC14) launched a raid on a high-class sex ring operated by a Korean in Tan Binh District.
Police revealed that when they raided the Nguyet Phuong Hotel on Cong Hoa Street in Tan Binh, they found nine local prostitutes having sex with nine customers, all Koreans.
At the same time, at the Phung Long Hotel on Phan Dinh Giot Street, also in Tan Binh, three other Korean men were caught copulating with three other local ladies of the night.
Immediately after, police and the socio-cultural inspection team raided the Vivace Karaoke and Nightclub in the Saigon SuperBowl, which turned out to be the sex-ring’s nerve-center of some years.
There, police arrested Kim Ki Soo, Korean, 53, owner of the Vivace, Kim Seok Joo, Korean, 42, Vivace manager, a 39-year-old Vietnamese manager named Quang Chi Dang, residing in District 10, two 29-year old Vietnamese “PR Managers” named Huynh Thi Nguyet and Nguyen Thi Bao Tran, and 23 “take-away hostesses” working for Vivace.
Police investigators said Kim Ki Soo and his Vietnamese accomplices had organized the high- class sex ring in the form of a system of restaurants and karaoke shops that hired out young ladies to work as take-way hostesses.
At the police station, the take-away hostesses confessed they worked for Vivace as hostesses ready to prostitute themselves to customers on request.
The price of a karaoke room with hostesses at Vivace was USD200. Every time a girl would go out with a customer, she would pay 20-30 percent of her remuneration to the Vivace sex-ring management. Each Vivace girl had sex with customers 10-20 times a day.
The Korean customers detained claimed Korean and Vietnamese madams at Vivace arranged prostitutes at rooms in hotels involved in the sex ring. For each session with a hostess, customers had to pay the madam managing the session USD60-90, sometimes over USD100, depending on the quality of their “goods”.
By late yesterday afternoon, police had put 63 persons involved in the sex ring in administrative custody, including Vivace’s Korean owner and managers, Vivace’s Vietnamese manager, two Vietnamese madams, nine Korean customers, nine confirmed prostitutes and 23 take-away hostesses and a number of Vivace's staff .
The socio-cultural inspection team also made reports on the administrative violations of the Vivace chain of karaokes and nightclubs, including selling and advertising alcohol without licenses, employing workers under 18 without registration and organizing promotional programs without permit.
In related news, at Ozone Bar at 125A Tran Quoc Thao, Ward 7, District 3 yesterday, the socio-cultural inspection team coordinating with District 3 Police carried out an inspection and found the bar sold foreign liquor without invoices.
Police also found and seized a green tablet on the bar’s floor suspected to be Ecstasy. In tests carried out on 261 customers at the bar at the time, two tested positive for heroin. The case has been transferred to the District 3 Police for further investigation.
