35 months' jail for boss of prostitution ring

35 months' jail for boss of prostitution ring

He made more than a million dollars running nine pubs and one of Singapore's largest prostitution rings, but those days are now over for Ang Boon Seng.

Yesterday, the 40-year-old was sentenced to 35 months' prison. His sentence will begin on Dec 22.

Ang made a total profit of at least $1.08 million from his business over four years, 40 per cent of which came from prostitution earnings. The monthly profits were between $27,000 and $60,000.

Ang, who had admitted to 43 vice-related charges and seven brought by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), was fined a total of $98,000 on the MOM charges of demanding money from the Filipino women brought in by his Filipino wife, Anne Asuncion Ylarde, as a condition of their employment.

District Judge Lim Keng Yeow also imposed a $3,600 disgorgement payment on Ang.

He will start his sentence only after Ylarde, 31, completes her sentence for bringing in Filipinas to work in the flesh trade. She was sentenced to 10 weeks' jail yesterday.

She would frequently travel to her home country to look for women interested in earning money to come to Singapore as "entertainment performers".

To dupe the authorities, she would sometimes pretend to be the women's sister and fly back to Singapore with them.

Ang came to know Ylarde in 2003 and married her six years later. The couple have six children, aged from two months to 13 years. Three of the kids are from Ang's previous marriage.

The court heard that Ang started Tokyo Drift at Orchard Plaza in June 2009, and within four years, opened nine pubs.

His prostitution ring was highly organised, with monitoring cameras and "smoke rooms" which could emit smoke when clients and the prostitutes wanted to get intimate.

In passing sentence, Judge Lim said Ang played a pivotal role in the sophisticated syndicate, which operated transnationally.

He said Ang also benefited substantially from running the illegal enterprise and took elaborate measures to evade detection.

Ang had 189 charges taken into consideration, while his wife had five.

elena@sph.com.sg


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