Vietnam police bust human-trafficking ring

Vietnam police bust human-trafficking ring Hanoi  - Police in the southern Vietnamese province of Tay Ninh have arrested three people accused of trafficking dozens of women to brothels across South-East Asia, a police official said Wednesday.

Huynh Van Dung, director of Tay Ninh's Department of Social Order Crime Investigations, said the traffickers had been denounced by victims who had since returned to Vietnam.

Police arrested Tran Van Tuan, 48, at Ho Chi Minh City's international airport on Sunday as he was helping four women in their 20s check in for a flight to Malaysia, according to the newspaper An Ninh Thu Do.

Dung said interrogation of Tuan led Tay Ninh police to arrest two accomplices, Le Thi My Le, 53, of Tay Ninh, and Tieu Linh Tu, 57, of Ho Chi Minh City.

Le and Tu recruited the women in rural Tay Ninh and elsewhere by claiming to have found Malaysian husbands for them.

"The arrestees admitted that they told (the young women) they were going to Malaysia and other countries to meet husbands, but that in fact they sold them to brothels to work as prostitutes," Dung said.

The amount of money the traffickers collected ranged from 1,000 to 3,000 dollars per woman, Dung said.

Dung said Tuan had confessed to trafficking about 30 women to Malaysia and other countries in South-East Asia, but that police figures indicated the real figure was closer to 100.

Dung said the case remains under investigation.

Marriage brokers are legal in Vietnam, but must be licensed. The government acknowledged that tens of thousands of Vietnamese women have been trafficked abroad over the past decade, and is devoting increasing resources to combatting the crime.

Under Vietnamese law, human trafficking carries a sentence of two to 20 years in prison. (dpa)