A total of 32 foreign women, two Bangladeshi guards and a local man were arrested for vice activities at a deserted hotel in Melaka – formerly known as Malacca – in Malaysia during an immigration raid on Wednesday night.
Acting a tip-off, immigration officers from a special task force raided an idle building at an old bus station in Jalan Tun Ali, Melaka, the old port city between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, at 8pm on Sept. 26, the China Press reported.
The building, which appeared to be deserted, once housed a shopping complex on its lower floors and a hotel from the fourth to the 10th floors.
Some 32 foreign prostitutes – 21 Thai women, 10 Vietnamese women and a Lao woman – were arrested for offering sex in rooms between the sixth and the 10th floors.
Two Bangladeshi men who worked as receptionists and assistants at the building, plus a local man who was identified as the pimp, were nabbed, along with 20,145 ringgit in cash (about US$4,870) seized during the operation.
Preliminary inquiries found that each male customer paid a fee of 175 ringgit ($42.30) for a 45-minute session of sex services.
They made a payment at a counter on the sixth floor before being taken to other floors for sex with foreign women inside the rooms that were described as very unhygienic.
The police are investigating the case under the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act of 2007, the Immigration Act of 1959-63, the Passport Act of 1966 and the Immigration Regulations Act of 1963.