Chinese women rescued from den of vice in Angola

Police from China and Angola have jointly busted a criminal gang that abducted Chinese women and forced them into prostitution in Angola, China's Ministry of Public Security said on Wednesday. Police rescued 19 Chinese women during a crackdown on Oct 25, in which 11 suspects were arrested in Angola and five were caught in China, according to a statement on the ministry's website. All suspects are Chinese citizens. The female victims were sent back to China on Nov 4 and the 11 suspects on Nov 13, said the statement. The case came into focus last April, when a woman surnamed Zhang informed Tonghua police authority in Northeast China's Jilin province that her sister and some other Chinese young women had been abducted to Angola, and forced to provide sexual service. Zhang told the police that on April 16 her sister was hired to work as an attendant in a hotel in Angola on a salary of 6,000 yuan ($945) per month. Xu Juan, who recruited her, offered to pay for tickets and visa worth $5,000 in advance. The candidates were supposed to pay it back after they earned the money, according to a news release by the ministry. Zhang told the police that after her sister arrived in Angola, she was forced to engage in prostitution and her personal freedom was restricted. She worked in a club operated by two Chinese brothers. Zhang got to know of her sister's plight when she managed a chance to chat with her online. According to the chatting records, the Chinese police has found that more than 10 Chinese women, most of them from Jilin, Henan, Sichuan and Anhui provinces, as well as Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, were detained. On Oct 14, the ministry sent a special investigation team to Angola, and with the assistance of the Chinese embassy in Angola, the police zeroed in on the exact location of the prostitution den. After negotiation with the Bureau of International Cooperation, and Criminal Investigation Bureau of Angola, on Oct 25, a joint police force raided the club, comprising a karaoke bar, catering service and hotel rooms. The police detained Sun Yinghao and Xu Juan on the spot, but only found three victims. The police later rescued 16 other victims from a dark room about 7 meters underneath the ground level. The police said from March to October, the suspects had made illegal profits of about 5 million yuan. The police found that two brothers - Sun Yinghao and Sun Hongbao - ran the racket. They had invested 4.2 million yuan to rent a club called Zhong'an International Entertainment Club in Benfica district in Luanda, capital city of Angola. Sun Yinghao's mistress, Xu Juan, from Jilin province, was in charge of luring impoverished Chinese women into the racket. Xu confessed that she specially targeted women who lived in bad conditions and wanted to go abroad to make big money and have a better life. Xu brought these women to Angola, promising to find them employment as servants or foot masseurs, and give them high salaries. Plane tickets and visa fees were paid in advance. "The women found these tokens very attractive," said Yin Guohai, a senior officer from the ministry's criminal investigation bureau, who was in charge of the case. But when they arrived, the situation was totally different. "A foot masseur got only $16 of the $40 paid by a customer," Yin told China Daily. "It would take a woman at least a year to be able to raise the $5,000 received in advance as air fare and visa fee. Saving money was out of the question." Then Xu began persuading them to provide sexual service to the customers, as a way of making more money, Yin said. "A woman could make $30 each time she did that, and spending a night with the customer would get her more than $100." "Although we found we had been cheated, the local public security was in disorder and we didn't have enough money to go back to China. We were mentally and physical exhausted, almost desperate. Finally we had to obey them," said Li Jie, one of the women victims from Sichuan province.