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Riau Islands business accused of trapping women into prostitution through social media
The women were allegedly recruited through a job vacancy advertisement in social media and then transported to Karimun in Riau Islands to be sex workers.
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The case came to light when a woman with the initials LA reported to the Indonesian Ombudsman that she had been scammed by a job vacancy ad she saw on Facebook. (Shutterstock/ImYanis)
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business in Karimun, Riau Islands is being accused of recruiting women from across the country with misleading ads and turning them into sex workers, police said on Monday.
Riau Islands Police claimed they discovered a prostitution business at the Villa Garden housing complex and arrested 31 sex workers. Their recruiter was arrested in Karimun and their pimp in Bandung, West Java.
The deputy director of the general crime directorate of the Riau Islands Police, Adj. Sr. Comr. Ari Darmanto, said on Monday that the case came to light when a woman with the initials LA reported to the Indonesian Ombudsman that she had been scammed by a job vacancy ad she saw on Facebook. The police followed up on the report by raiding the villa on Sunday.
Meanwhile, a man identified as both DP and Vallen was arrested in Bandung, accused of having a role in advertising the fake job vacancy and recruiting women through Facebook, Line and Beetalk.
“DP or Vallen [allegedly] spread the job vacancy advertisement and after meeting the victim he offered her a job as a masseuse or restaurant [waitress],” Ari said.
Afterwards, a man identified as either Akui or Awin [allegedly] took charge of the women to run them as prostitutes. Police claim he paid the women’s transportation expenses from their original cities to Karimun. “Later, the expenses would be cut from the women’s earnings,” Ari said.
According to Ari, the women’s ages ranged from 29 to 31 years. Most of them came from West Java, Central Java, Medan in North Sumatra and South Sumatra. Police claim customers were charged Rp 1 million (US$71.29) to Rp 2 million per night, while the women got 50 percent of the pay, which was paid to them every six months.
