Police arrested 16 people during operations on 8 and 9 October in an investigation into an alleged cross-border prostitution operation active in Tsim Sha Tsui. They seized more than HK$13 million in cash and froze more than HK$5 million in suspected criminal proceeds.
The arrests included four core members, among them three local brothers and a Thai man, as well as nine Thai sex workers, police said. A unit in a private residential estate in Tuen Mun served as the operation’s centre. Thai members allegedly recruited Thai women, arranged flights to Hong Kong and placed them in Tsim Sha Tsui hotels. Other members advertised services online, including through Telegram, using photographs and videos, and arranged clients’ appointment times and hotel rooms.
Each transaction was priced at HK$700 to HK$1,000, police said. The women allegedly handed their daily cash earnings to Thai men who controlled them, while the group took about 70 per cent of the profits.
The group used members’ personal bank accounts to handle proceeds. Police believed the operation had run for at least a year and sent about HK$2 million a month to offshore accounts.
Police planned to charge those arrested with offences including trafficking people into or out of Hong Kong, controlling prostitution, living on prostitution earnings and money laundering. The case was due at Kowloon City Magistrates’ Courts on 12 October.
Computers seized during the operation contained the women’s daily appointment schedules, contact numbers and records of when they started and finished work.