Pedestrians walk in front of the Hotel Lisboa
The trial of the alleged prostitution ring that operated inside Hotel Lisboa continued on Friday at the Court of First Instance (TJB). The case involves Alan Ho, Stanley Ho’s nephew who was the executive director of the Hotel Lisboa up until January 2015, when the arrests occurred. On Friday, several statements written one year ago by the women who allegedly served as prostitutes at the hotel were revealed.
A few facts were recurrent throughout the long marathon of readings, which is still to be completed. Among these facts is the revelation that all the women mentioned the need for an “interview” before they started their work providing sexual services in the hotel. In almost all of the cases, the interviews were performed by the second defendant Kelly Wong, assistant deputy manager for “Special Market PR” of the hotel and, as aforementioned during the first trial session, the person who managed the “special check-in counter.”
The women also stated that the interview process was a mere two-minute task with the sole purpose of approving the candidate’s physical features. One of them even admitted that “the number of rooms was limited and the most beautiful women had preference.”
Another of the facts concerned the amount to charge for the sexual services provided to the guests that was allegedly fixed at HKD1,500.
There were also clearly stated rules about how the women should dress, act and where they were allowed to search for clients within the hotel premises, although it was not clear that those rules were dictated by the same person in all of the cases.
The most heard name during the fifty-statement reading was that of Kelly Wang Qiao Yu known by the women under the short name “Yuyu”, along with that of her assistant Qiao Yan Yan, known as “Yanyan,” who took care of most of the tasks involving the women.
Several of the fifty witness statements heard on Friday mentioned the presence of one man in some of the interviews, with at least four of the women stating that they were able to identify him as the first defendant in this case, Alan Ho. Ho is the most preeminent of the defendants, whom many of the women admitted also came to know from the corridors and common areas of the hotel. He was known among them by the name “Lou Ho.”
From the statements, it was also possible to establish a pattern in most of the cases, with the women claiming to have come to Macau either at the suggestion of “friends”, people they met in the Chinese mainland in nightlife establishments or from advertisements they saw on the internet offering attractive high-income opportunities within a short space of time.
In most cases, the women were able to enter the territory thanks to intermediaries and pimps to whom they paid large sums to help them (in many cases illegally) and to grant them a “working room” at Hotel Lisboa.
Guaranteeing themselves a room for their prostitution work was also another of the main reasons stated by the majority of the women who claim to have paid around RMB150,000 as “presentation and protection fee” and also to “keep their priority in getting a room”, avoiding in this way to “queue up” everyday around 2:30 p.m. to the room distribution at the check-in counter. They either deposited or transferred this money into a bank account in mainland China.
They stated that they thought this fee was going to Kelly Wang, although she never collected it personally.
In addition to the one-off fee, the women claimed to have paid a daily fee between MOP1,000 and 1,500 for the rental of the hotel room. This was the only charge they said they faced, also stating that nobody else from the hotel staff ever asked them for money or provided any kind of help or constraint. They admitted that they came to Macau and performed the activity of their own free will.
The only statement presented that provided an alternate claim was the one from a woman that claimed to have been in Macau to gamble, and because she lost all her money she searched for help from the casino employees who then allegedly directed her to a “special check-in counter.”
Since she did not have the money to pay the “presentation fee”, she claims to have paid HKD6,000 in cash every month to “Yuyu” or to someone who collected the sum from her at a room situated on the 8th floor of the hotel.
The same witness also provided the most detailed description of the procedures and stated that there was a meeting between Kelly Wang and the woman to explain all the rules.
Although it was not clear what the “punishment” was in the case they did not comply with the rules, many of the witnesses claimed to have heard from others that they would “lose the room” and would be sent out of the territory, having to pay the “presentation fee” again if they wished to return.
One of the women, a former escort at a KTV in Zhuhai, claimed to have come to Macau on her own and without any intermediaries. She also claimed that she had started to prostitute herself at the Venetian Hotel, finding clients independently. By word-of-mouth, she decided to try to enroll in the Lisboa scheme, since the security guards at the Venetian were always “kicking her out” and not letting her offer her services to the guests. She claims that initially she was refused at the “counter” and went back to the Venetian where she was caught by the police and was banned from entering Macau for a period of three years.
After that, she returned to the territory illegally paying RMB5,500 to be brought by boat from Zhuhai. She claims to have arrived in Taipa together with four or five others. From there she was taken by taxi to Hotel Lisboa where she was accepted.
All the women claimed that Hotel Lisboa security guards knew about their presence, and their intentions at the hotel, and yet failed to prevent or stop their activity.
The trial is set to continue with two more sessions scheduled for this week, on Thursday and Friday (January 21 and 22).
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