SINGAPORE : For nearly three years, a husband-wife
duo ran a ring of Vietnamese prostitutes, many of whom were
underage, and lived off their earnings.
For that, 42-year-old Seng Swee Meng was jailed five
years on Wednesday after pleading guilty to 15 counts of violating
the Women's Charter Act.
His wife, Ngo Tien, a Vietnamese national, is still
at large after she left Singapore with their their3-year-old
daughter last July.
The duo recruited the women, some of them were between 16 and 17
years old at that time, from October 2008 to August 2011.
They put the women in their Geylang apartment where Seng's wife
would coach the women on plying their trade.
Throughout their stay here, the pair would also take a cut of the
girls' earnings, varying between S$300 and S$700 each time.
In addition, Seng and Ngo introduced the women to their friends,
and ordered them to provide sexual services for their friends as
well.
On one occasion, they arranged for a 16-year-old girl to have sex
with Seng's friend, a 52-year-old man, for S$100.
Seng turned himself in after his apartment was raided last August
which saw 30 Vietnamese women being arrested.
The court heard that Seng, who is currently unemployed, became
involved in vice activities through his wife.
In his mitigation, Seng's lawyer, S S Dhillon told the court that
Seng was "reluctant to be drawn into the scheme" but assisted her
eventually out of "financial desperation".
He added that Seng was not the mastermind as his wife made the
arrangements for the Vietnamese women to be brought into
Singapore.
For receiving the women in Singapore and living off their earnings,
Seng could have been jailed up to five years and fined a maximum of
S$10,000 for each offence.
- CNA/ms