HCMC police bust beauty queen-related prostitution racket

Ho Chi Minh City police on Friday arrested a group that was arranging prostitution services involving beauty queens selling sex to customers for VND45-200 million ($1,900-8,200).

Municipal police arrested Nguyen Thanh Liem, 34, and Ha Thuy Van Anh, 23, for offering prostitution brokerage services while expanding their investigation into a prostitution ring led by 26-year-old Vo Thi My Hanh, who used to be a flight attendant but quit last October.

Van Anh was identified as the mastermind, police said, adding that her group had shared a number of clients with Hanh.

Van Anh and Liem were accused of offering sex for $1,900-8,200 each time, and even higher for sex tours and overnight liaisons. The brokers collected money from customers and took $1,000-2,000 in commission each time.

Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Thanh Hung, head of the Ho Chi Minh City Police's criminal police department, said during a raid on a building on Nguyen Van Linh street and a hotel in Trung Son residential area, Binh Chanh district, the police caught four couples red-handed buying and selling sex.

Among them was a 36-year-old woman who had won many beauty contests and was selling sex for $10,000 a time, and a 27-year-old beauty queen who charged $1,850.

Police found that Van Anh and Liem often rented high-end, strictly guarded apartments for customers to use. They regularly posted pictures of them shopping for expensive goods to entice beauty queens, models and hot tiktokers.

HCMC police, along with those in Hanoi’s Hoang Mai district and Hung Yen province, later arrested two more people involved in the case.

Previously, Hanh was arrested for leading a prostitution ring involving flight attendants and models selling sex for $1,000-3,000.

According to the investigative agency, she had a network of 30 flight attendants from various Vietnamese airlines and well-known photo models.

In addition to brokering, Hanh also sold sex. She built the image of a successful person on social networks with more than 300,000 followers, while flaunting a luxurious lifestyle of travel and expensive branded clothes to attract girls.

Clients mainly came from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Ba Ria-Vung Tau. The investigative agency initially estimated that Hanh had obtained illicit profits of over VND1 billion ($42,090).