Two men jailed, fined for operating online prostitution service
Two men who operated an online prostitution service for over four years were jailed and fined at the State Courts on Thursday (4 April).
The mastermind behind the MadamQ website, Ong Ah Huat, was jailed two years and five months while his employee, Teo Sah Soon, was jailed 11 months. Ong, 55, and Teo, 58, were also fined $20,000 and $30,000, respectively.
Ong pleaded guilty to nine charges in total, which included operating a remote communication service for prostitution, procuring women for prostitution as well as two drug charges – one of which was the possession of cannabis.
Teo, who did not face any drug charges, admitted to five charges similar to Ong’s.
Local and foreign women recruited
Ong decided to set up the social escort business sometime between 2013 and 2014 as he thought it would be a good source of income. He recruited Teo to help him with a social escort website he named MadamQ.
He told Teo that the women featured on the site would provide sexual services. As part of his job, Teo would also update the site with profile information and photographs of the escorts.
The website was the sole source of employment for both men from 2014 until Ong’s arrest last year.
Potential escorts – both local and foreign – were introduced to Ong either through friends or via his website. Ong would then brief the women on their job scope, which included offering sexual services.
Ong would require a 40 per cent cut from what the social escorts earned per assignment. From Ong’s earnings, 5 per cent would be given to Teo as a commission. Teo was also paid a monthly salary of $1,500.
More than $70,000 earned
Over the four years that he ran MadamQ, Ong earned some $71,490, of which $8,936.25 was paid to Teo as commission, according to Deputy Public Prosecutor Jordon Li.
However, only $14,799.12 was found in the two bank accounts that Ong used to receive his cuts from the escorts.
One of the women employed by MadamQ from 2015 to 2018, serviced 35 customers and handed over $14,000 of her earnings. Another escort secured some 40 customers between December 2017 and August 2018, earning Ong over $24,000 in the process.
Acting on a tip-off, the police conducted an operation at Holiday Inn Orchard City Centre on 2 August last year. A Kyrgyzstani prostitute was arrested in the process and Ong’s involvement was uncovered. He was arrested the next day.
Officers who searched Ong’s home recovered at least 47.39g of cannabis. Ong’s urine also tested positive for the drug. He later admitted to consuming the drug daily.
Employee in dire financial straits
DPP Li sought for 32 months’ jail for Ong and 15 months’ jail for Teo.
Ong was the “originator of the business” and was personally involved in recruiting the escorts, according to Li. He also served as the middleman between them and the customers.
Teo, by comparison, was only in charge of setting up and maintaining the website, said Li.
Ong’s lawyer Lee Chin Seon urged the court not to fine Ong, stating that Ong had actually made a loss from his business, after factoring into account his expenses. Lee left the jail sentence up to the court.
Teo’s lawyer Singa Retnam said that his client was a former managing director of his own company. When he divorced his wife in 2000, Teo transferred all shares in his company to his ex-wife and paid over $100,000 to her and their two children.
Retnam noted that Teo had also given his freehold landed property to his family. The financial drain left him bankrupt from 2000 to 2013.
Teo had initially agreed to Ong’s request to set up an online social escort agency as it was not illegal, said the lawyer.
“Teo had never dealt or interfered in any transaction or financial dealings arising from the website,” said Retnam.
“He had committed the offences due to the financial constraints he faced and also because he could not secure employment due to the 15-year gap in his work experience,” said the lawyer.
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