Corporate-Style Brothel Runners Caught
By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
The prosecution arrested pimps running ``corporate-style'' brothels in Jangan-dong, one of the major red-light districts in Seoul, as well as their financial supporters and building owners who allowed them to run their business in their buildings in exchange for high rental fees, confiscating 37.2 billion won they had accumulated through sex trade.
This is the first time the prosecution have confiscated such a large sum accumulated through prostitution.
The Seoul Northern District Prosecutors' Office said Thursday it had investigated 10 large-scale brothels disguised as ``massage parlors'' since last May and recently prosecuted seven of them and their supporters on charges of running or supporting the illegal business.
It also detained 12 others involved in the business and placed nine gangsters who served as their guardians on the wanted list.
This is part of the government's efforts to weed out prostitution, which has served as a hotbed of major heinous crimes.
Apart from prosecutors, the police have continued their crackdown on the nation's best-known red-light district since July in response to growing calls among residents in the area. Since then, massage parlors, considered a shameful ``landmark'' there, have disappeared one by one. At the height of the campaign, the police also put additional pressure on them by installing several surveillance cameras around the town, a measure to keep potential customers away from the district and intensify its scrutiny.
``Recently, small brothels are combining to become one large-scale brothel, a way to generate more profit. In this sense, the profit confiscation we did this time will help curb the new trend,'' a prosecutor said.