A Hong Kong court has sentenced a 70-year-old gang member to a year in prison for forcing two Thai women into prostitution, after they fell for job scams claiming to be hiring massage therapists and were trafficked from Thailand to the city in 2023.
The District Court heard on Monday that Chiu Hon-leung ordered other gang members to lock the two women in a flat in Yau Ma Tei’s Temple Street and forced them to engage in sex work after they arrived in Hong Kong on February 7, 2023.
The two women, both in their 40s at the time, alerted the Thai consulate in Hong Kong and were found by police the next day.
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Judge Ernest Lin Kam-hung said the case involved “trafficking two foreigners into Hong Kong for prostitution” but noted that Chiu had never directly spoken to or met the two victims.
Standing in the dock alongside Chiu was his subordinate Ke Jinmei, a woman in her mid-30s. They had both been arrested for alleged human trafficking but eventually charges of “living on earnings of prostitution of others” under the Crimes Ordinance.
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The court heard that Chiu had instructed Ke in a group chat that she should take care of the Thai women and provide them with wet wipes and mouthwash to prepare them for sex work.
In one of his messages, Chiu told Ke that the women had “never done such things before”.