108 Vietnamese women saved in raids

SERI MANJUNG: A Vietnamese woman's action of seeking police help over her ordeal at having to work as a guest relations officer (GRO) resulted in not only her rescue, but also that of more than 100 of her countrywomen. Two raids, carried out between 11pm on Saturday and 2am on two premises yesterday by the Federal police Anti-Human Trafficking Unit, saw 108 Vietnamese women rescued.

Bukit Aman's Gambling, Vice and Secret Society Division (D7) officer, Superintendent Ang Ah Ban, said the foreigners were lured to fMalaysia on the pretext of providing them proper work but ended up being employed as GROs at an entertainment outlet and a restaurant.

"Police had received a complaint from one of the GROs. Based on that tip-off, we conducted separate raids on the two premises simultaneously.

"We rescued 108 Vietnamese women between the ages of 16 and 32 with the help of 10 officers and 28 personnel from Bukit Aman and the Manjung police district team.

"This is the biggest anti-human trafficking operation so far this year."

Ang said 90 of the women were rescued from a karaoke joint while the rest were from a restaurant nearby, adding only 37 had passports on them.

He said police had also detained around 100 patrons from the two premises to assist in police investigations. "The raid on the karaoke joint is the second for the outlet, as a D7 team from Bukit Aman had raided it a few years ago."