A total of 52 people, including 36 foreigners, were arrested on Thursday during a raid on a sex trafficking operation in Taipei, police said yesterday.
Acting on a tip-off, a team of about 100 police officers surrounded a building on Kangding Road in the city’s Wanhua District (萬華) at 6pm before entering with search and arrest warrants, police officials told a media briefing.
During the raid, 10 Taiwanese suspected of operating the sex trafficking ring were arrested, along with 42 suspected sex workers — 28 from Thailand, six from Vietnam, two from China and six Taiwanese, police said.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei City Police Department via CNA
Police also seized accounting ledgers and other evidence from the scene, said Chen Wei-jen (陳偉仁), head of an investigation squad at the Wanhua Precinct.
The 10 Taiwanese suspected of running the prostitution ring have been handed over to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for investigation, while the foreign suspected sex workers are being held in detention by immigration authorities pending deportation based on the findings of the probe, Chen said.
The six Taiwanese suspected sex workers would be charged under the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), Chen added.
The foreigners entered Taiwan on tourist visas and were inhumanely exploited by the sex trafficking ring, police said.
The alleged sex traffickers were luring women from overseas to Taiwan with offers of work at massage and beauty parlors, but were coercing them into prostitution on arrival, police said.
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