Macau police have arrested more than 100 women on prostitution charges at the Venetian Macao, the first major sex-trade crackdown at the glitzy hotel since it opened in 2007, reports said yesterday.
The former Portuguese colony’s vice squad swooped on the sprawling hotel early yesterday in a raid that coincided with a visit by US gaming tycoon Sheldon Adelson, whose Las Vegas Sands controls the hotel’s operator Sands China.
A Sands China spokeswoman declined comment, but said the company would issue a statement late yesterday.
The raid came a week after the Macau government rejected Sands China’s application to build another multi-billion dollar casino resort on the city’s lucrative Cotai Strip. The firm also operates the Four Seasons and Sands Macao.
Over 70 police officers raided the hotel’s massive gaming floor, taking 110 Chinese women and 22 others thought to be controlling them into custody, reports said.
“They stayed for about two hours and then took away more than 100 people they had an interest in, most of them women,” a Sands China spokeswoman told the South China Morning Post.
She said the hotel had a policy banning sex workers, adding that Adelson’s visit was unconnected to the raid.
The Post said the women were forced to pay their pimps a daily “protection fee” of as much as HK$1,000 (US$130).
Macau is the only Chinese city where casino gambling is allowed and has overtaken Las Vegas in terms of gaming revenue since the sector was opened to foreign competition in 2002.
Prostitutes are commonly seen looking for customers in some of the city’s casino hotels and raids on the sex trade are common.
“Such prostitution activities have always been an on-going issue in Macau and have been very serious,” Macau legislator Au Kam-san (區錦新) was quoted as saying by Hong Kong newspaper the Standard. “The government is not determined enough to combat such crimes.”
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
RSS