KUALA LUMPUR: A Singapore court has sentenced lawyer Spencer Gwee Hak Theng to five years in prison for his role in a human trafficking sex ring in the country involving Vietnamese women. It is the latest sentence against the man for his participation in illegal human trafficking and sex work. According to the court, he and his wife, Ngo Tien, of Vietnamese decent, imported women from Vietnam to work in Singapore as sex workers. Police arrested the couple last August after discovering some 30 women who were working in the sex industry in the city-state in Joo Chiat and Geylang. A number of the girls rescued were under 18-years-old and had been forced into the business by the Singapore-Vietnam couple. Seng faced four charges of harboring sex workers, four counts of receiving them at Changi Airport, four counts of living in part on earnings of sex work, two counts of abetting to obtain commercial sex with minors and one count of managing a place where the sex workers were assigned. Seng was sentenced to five years' jail on April 11. The next day, his sister-in-law, Ngo Ngoc, 27, was jailed for 18 months. His wife has fled the country and is on the run after leaving Singapore for Vietnam last July. The whereabouts of her older brother, known only as Ba, are unknown. Besides Gwee, 10 other men were also charged for having paid sex with an underage girl. Two of them have been convicted and sentenced to jail. Taxi driver Chong Heng Kow, 52, who paid $100 twice for sex with a 16-year-old Vietnamese sex worker on July 3 last year, was jailed for three months on Monday. Odd-job worker Tan Wah Eng, 60, was jailed for four months on June 15 for having sex with a then 17-year-old Vietnamese sex worker on June 19 last year. Cases involving the rest of the men are at the pre-trial stage.
