The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted eight people, including a Vietnamese, for trafficking Indonesian women to Taiwan to perform sex work.
Prosecutors called for more than NT$3.62 million (US$117,808) of illegal profits to be confiscated, and listed an Indonesian woman, nicknamed “Luna,” as wanted for assisting the group’s operation in Indonesia.
According to the indictment, a Vietnamese woman, surnamed Vo, in 2023 formed a human trafficking ring with Luna and a Taiwanese man, surnamed Hu (胡).
Photo: Wu Sheng-ru, Taipei Times
The group lured victims with Facebook advertisements offering “high-paying jobs” as spa workers, karaoke hostesses or sex workers in Taiwan, it said.
However, the victims were sent to rented apartments in Taipei and New Taipei City, where they were forced to work as prostitutes for more than 12 hours a day and paid NT$200 to NT$500.
To prevent the women from seeking help or escaping, the group threatened them with having to work off the debt accrued from their trip to Taiwan.
The women initially traveled to Japan as tourist groups to obtain a Japanese visa, which allowed them to enter Taiwan on for 14 days visa-free as tourists.
After arriving in Taiwan, the group confiscated the women’s passports and forced them to pose for erotic ads.
One woman died from heart failure in July last year, and reportedly expressed her unwillingness to return to her traffickers on her death bed while in hospital, the indictment said.
In February, one woman escaped with the help of a male client, and went to the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office to Taipei, where she revealed details of the sex trafficking case, it said.
Prosecutors charged members of the group with human trafficking and engaging in organized crime, while seeking a minimum prison sentence of six years for Vo and Hu, and two years for two Taiwanese men surnamed Chen (陳) and Chien (簡), who rented rooms for the ring.
Four others — all Taiwanese and surnamed Huang (黃), Fang (方), Cho (卓) and Chen (陳) — were also indicted for their involvement in the group’s daily operations, which included transporting the victims and soliciting business, the indictment said.
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