A Hong Kong court has sentenced a 70-year-old gang member to a year in prison for forcing two Thai women into prostitution, after they fell for job scams claiming to be hiring massage therapists and were trafficked from Thailand to the city in 2023.
The District Court heard on Monday that Chiu Hon-leung ordered other gang members to lock the two women in a flat in Yau Ma Tei's Temple Street and forced them to engage in sex work after they arrived in Hong Kong on Feb 7, 2023.
The two women, both in their 40s at the time, alerted the Thai consulate in Hong Kong and were found by police the next day.
Judge Ernest Lin Kam-hung said the case involved "trafficking two foreigners into Hong Kong for prostitution" but noted that Chiu had never directly spoken to or met the two victims.
Standing in the dock alongside Chiu was his subordinate Ke Jinmei, a woman in her mid-30s. They had both been arrested for alleged human trafficking but eventually charges of "living on earnings of prostitution of others" under the Crimes Ordinance.
The court heard that Chiu had instructed Ke in a group chat that she should take care of the Thai women and provide them with wet wipes and mouthwash to prepare them for sex work.
In one of his messages, Chiu told Ke that the women had "never done such things before".
In another, he wrote in Cantonese: "Start work! Start work! Just get them to start work. Have they eaten?"
Ke told police that her role was to bring the customers up to the flat in Temple Street. Each customer paid HK$250 (1,060 baht) for a session, of which HK$45 went to Ke.
On Feb 8, Ke said she took six to seven customers to the Temple Street flat but the two Thai women refused to "work", with one of them claiming that she had been scammed by a friend.
Two other co-defendants in the case earlier pleaded guilty to the same offence.
Court documents from the earlier hearing showed that one of the Thai women, aged 41 at the time, was referred to a massage therapist job in Phuket. Just before checking in at the airport, she found out that her destination was Hong Kong.
She nonetheless boarded the plane to the city, saying she only realised she had been trapped into prostitution after arriving at the flat on Temple Street.
Using her phone, she took pictures of the street from the flat and sent them to her boyfriend in Thailand. The Thai consulate in Hong Kong also received her real-time location.
Judge Lin sentenced Ke to seven months' imprisonment, while giving Chiu a heavier sentence of one year.
Hong Kong does not have specific legislation targeting human trafficking but offences related to such trafficking are covered by several ordinances.
The current offence of prostitution falls under the Crimes Ordinance, which punishes any person who "exercises control over another person's movements in a way which shows he or she is aiding, abetting or forcing that other person's prostitution with others".
