Police implicated in brothel payoff scheme

Taipei City police officers have been manipulating the law and demanding payoffs from brothels and their patrons in the aftermath of vice raids, Taipei City councilors alleged yesterday.

New Party city councilors Lee Hsin (李新), Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊), Lee Ching-yuan (李慶元), and Chin Li-fang (秦儷舫) made the allegations at a joint press conference at the city council yesterday.

Playing a tape recording of a conversation between a brothel patron and himself, Lee Hsin said that police offered to give the suspect a lighter criminal charge if he admitted to engaging in sex with the prostitute. The police then used the confession to put pressure on the brothel's operator.

The man, who spoke to Lee two days ago on condition of anonymity, was caught having sex with a call girl at a motel during a police raid on the night of Feb. 1.

"They told me that if I didn't want my family to know about it, I'd better admit that I had paid to have sex with her," the patron said. "If I cooperated, they would handle the case as an obscene act, which they said was not a big deal, although I would have to pay NT$6,000 as required by the law and tell them what I knew about the call service."

According to the Social Order Maintenance Law (社會秩序維護法), when a prostitute and a patron are found having sex during a bust, the prostitute is subject to a detention of up to three days or a fine of up to NT$30,000, while the patron receives no punishment but is required to offer testimony in court.

The employer or agent of the prostitute is also subject to having their water and electricity supplies at the `venue of operations' cut.

But if the two parties are caught engaging in obscene acts, each is subject to a NT$6,000 fine and are not submitted to the prosecutors.

"Most patrons prefer to pay the NT$6,000 rather than give testimony in court because they're either worried about their own reputation or afraid that their spouse might file a lawsuit," Lee said.

After the police obtained the information from the patron, Lee said, they then confronted the employer of the prostitute and demanded a certain amount of money be paid for the return of the prostitutes or face the termination of their water and electricity supplies, Lee said.

"My own investigation shows that it costs about NT$50,000 to get back a local prostitute and NT$80,000 for a foreign one," he said.

"Most employers prefer to pay the money because they do not want to see the operation of their business terminated," he said.

Chen Yi-feng (陳逸峰), chief inspector of the Taipei City Police Headquarters (台北市警局), said that the case unfortunately is not isolated.

"Prosecutors currently are investigating a similar case. The headquarters will not side with anyone who is in the wrong and will do everything in accordance with the law," he said.