Taipei police on Saturday arrested 24 female Thai tourists on suspicion of working as hostesses and engaging in illegal activities at an underground bar in Zhongshan District (中山), the distict’s police precinct said in a statement yesterday.
The police also arrested five other people involved in the operation, including the 29-year-old bar owner surnamed Chiang (蔣), and 17 customers, the statement said.
The 24 Thai women were fined an undisclosed amount in accordance with the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) by the police and transferred to a National Immigration Agency (NIA) special brigade in Taipei for repatriation to Thailand.
Photo: Taipei Times file
The cases of Chiang and the four employees were referred to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for further investigation, while the customers were questioned and then released, the statement said.
The Zhongshan Police Precinct was alerted to the case after receiving a tip-off recently that a sex bar was operating in the basement of a building on Minsheng E Road, the statement said.
Police formed a task force to collect evidence and found that the owner of the business had hired several Thai women to come to Taiwan on short-term visitor visas and work as bar hostesses, which entailed drinking with and engaging in intimacy with customers, it said.
The customers tipped them with “wristbands,” which could converted into cash, the statement said.
The task force and the NIA brigade searched the premises on Saturday morning and arrested the 24 Thai women, 17 customers, four employees and the bar owner, it said.
The task force also seized revenue of more than NT$410,000, an accounting book, wireless electronic devices and remote access controls at the bar, and confiscated a marijuana cartridge, a ketamine cigarette and other evidence from the employees, it said.
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