Under the pretext of hiring salesmen, etc., they recruited prostitutes, lured customers on the grounds that their family members were seriously ill and needed help, trained the prostitutes to pretend to be pure students with plain faces and straight hair... From May 10 to 11, after being prosecuted by Xishan District People's Procuratorate of Kunming City, Yunnan Province, Xishan District Court of Kunming City adjourned the trial of this case involving 19 defendants for organizing and assisting prostitution, but did not announce the verdict in court.
It was reported that among the 9 defendants accused of organizing prostitution, Gu Huayong, Gu Huacheng and others were either husband and wife or real siblings. Li Mou, Pi Mou and other 9 defendants were prostitutes themselves, who were prosecuted for assisting in organizing prostitution because they also introduced "peers" to engage in prostitution. One defendant, Huang Daiyong, a butcher who made special pig blood for the prostitutes, was charged with the crime of helping organize prostitution.
Three brothers successively engaged in illegal activities
Gu Huayong started working in Kunming in 1992. Initially, he made a living by decorating houses, running supermarkets, and driving bread vans. Although he didn't become extremely wealthy, he slowly earned several tens of thousands of yuan through his efforts and bought a house in Kunming. In 2001, he moved into his new home and brought his wife and children to Kunming.
Gu Huayong was not satisfied with this, and in 2005, he came up with the idea of making money through organizing prostitution. "At the time, my wife opposed it and even had a big argument with me because of this," said Gu Huayong, who ignored his wife Zhou Naiju's advice. Since 2007, he has targeted young women with low levels of education, using excuses such as selling cosmetics, clothes, and doing housekeeping. He registered job information at housekeeping companies and recruited several young women around the age of 20, organizing them to specifically engage in prostitution and taking a cut from their earnings. Later, Zhou Naiju also joined her husband's "business."
A year after Gu Huayong made money from his business, his older brother Gu Huacheng also began organizing women to engage in prostitution. According to Gu Huacheng's confession, he registered under the pretext of recruiting nannies at housekeeping companies and arranged for the prostitutes to stay in rented houses, where his wife Jin Kaiqiao would cook for them. He signed contracts with these girls and managed them by collecting deposits. "There were as many as 9 girls at our place, and sometimes as few as 2," said Gu Huacheng.
During the trial, both Gu Huacheng and his brother stated that their two families operated separately, though there were instances of "borrowing prostitutes" from each other, "but payment was required." Besides Gu Huacheng, Gu Huayong's younger brother Gu Huawu later also joined his brothers' ranks.
Finally, this family-style criminal gang expanded to include 9 members, including the three Gu brothers, their wives, brothers-in-law, and sister.
Sending mass text messages to attract customers
To attract more customers, Gu Huayong and others thought of ways like online chatting, distributing cards, and referrals from acquaintances. They also sent mass text messages with content like "Brother, hello, I am a pitiful girl. My father is seriously ill now, and due to poverty, we have no money for treatment. If you are willing to provide help, I am willing to offer my virginity..." These messages were sent to random phone numbers.
The "advertisements" were eye-catching and tempting, and once customers took the bait, Gu Huayong and others would negotiate the prostitution fee and location with them before letting the prostitutes make detailed contact and go to the designated place to engage in prostitution. According to the arrangements, the prostitutes would leave the customer's phone number each time, and some even introduced classmates or friends to other prostitutes, profiting from the process.
The prosecutor handling the case introduced that the organized prostitution activities of the family-style criminal gang led by Gu Huayong involved seven steps—
Step one: Recruitment. Under the guise of hiring clothing salespeople, they recruited young female migrant workers aged 18 to 21 through labor markets and housekeeping companies. Step two: Brainwashing. Upon encountering suitable applicants, they would take them to the rented accommodation rooms, provide food and lodging conditions, and tempt them with high income to deceive them into engaging in prostitution. Step three: Signing agreements. Once the applicants agreed, their ID cards would be withheld, and they would be asked to sign an agreement. The agreement included details about how the proceeds from prostitution would be divided, requiring the prostitutes to pay a 10,000 yuan deposit, prohibiting them from staying out overnight on their own, and not allowing them to refuse prostitution without permission, etc. Step four: Training. Training the prostitutes, mainly teaching them how to pretend to be virgins and student sisters. Step five: Organizing prostitution. Step six: Taking a cut. Requiring the prostitutes to record each prostitution transaction and collect their share of the prostitution fees at the end of each month. If the prostitute contacted the customer herself, she could get 50% of the prostitution proceeds; otherwise, it was 30%. Step seven: Regular health check-ups. If a prostitute was found to be pregnant, arrangements would be made for her to have an abortion at the hospital.
The tricks behind the thriving business
Gu Huayong and others extended their prostitution organization activities to various cities and prefectures in Yunnan and some cities outside the province. Zhao was arranged to engage in prostitution over 30 times, with locations covering hotels in Kunming, Dali in Yunnan, Lhasa in Tibet, and Chongqing. She earned a total of 80,000 yuan from prostitution, of which she received a 20,000 yuan commission.
Since some customers preferred student-like or virgin-like prostitutes who paid more, Gu Huayong later learned to let the prostitutes use specially prepared pig blood to fake being virgins. To make the prostitutes look like students, he contacted people who made fake IDs to obtain fake student IDs and instructed the prostitutes to wear sports uniforms, keep straight hair, and avoid makeup.
Defendant Huang Daiyong was put on the path of assisting in organizing prostitution because he provided specially treated pig blood. Originally, Huang Daiyong was an ordinary vendor in a Kunming farmers' market, specializing in selling pork and pig blood. More than two years ago, a woman approached him, asking for "pig blood without added chemicals that wouldn't coagulate" to be used as "virgin blood" for prostitutes. Thus, starting from the second half of 2007, he provided specially treated pig blood at high prices. If the customers ordered by phone, he would even deliver it personally.
Prosecution authorities legally participated in the investigation, and all 19 gang members were prosecuted.
On August 3, 2010, the police acted on public reports and simultaneously conducted unified arrest operations at 10 dens in Kunming and Jinping County in Honghe Prefecture, successfully capturing Gu Huayong, Zhou Naiju, and others involved in the prostitution organization gang. At the same time, they seized 107 notebooks recording prostitution transactions, 17 agreements signed by the prostitutes, 362 solicitation cards, confiscated 112,000 yuan in cash, 2,000 Hong Kong dollars, 13 various bank cards, 8 passbooks, 5 vehicles involved in the case, etc.
According to the records in the seized notebooks, the total prostitution revenue amounted to 22,829,000 yuan.
After learning about this case, Xishan District People's Procuratorate of Kunming City dispatched three people, including the deputy procurator-general in charge and business backbone personnel, to legally participate in the investigation. After reviewing the evidence materials collected by the police, the prosecutors suggested further obtaining materials related to prostitution-related administrative punishment cases in Kunming City. Afterwards, the Supervision Department of Xishan District People's Procuratorate reviewed again. This process repeated no less than five times. During this period, the prosecutors worked overtime, carefully verifying more than 100 notebooks, suggesting that the police report the organizers of prostitution and the prostitutes involved in crimes in two batches for arrest; considering the active role played by the prostitutes involved in crimes within the gang, the prosecutors suggested that the police prosecute them for assisting in organizing prostitution.
During the public trial of this case in court, the prosecution team composed of Wang Jingcai, head of the Public Prosecution Department of Xishan District People's Procuratorate, Bai Wen, the main handler, and Shen Rong presented and cross-examined evidence through multimedia. Due to adequate preparation, the trial lasted one day less than the expected three days.
Although the Gu brothers both claimed that they did not force anyone into prostitution, during the trial, the statements from the prostitutes were somewhat inconsistent with those of the Gu brothers. Defendant Li Mou confessed that Gu Huawu had confiscated her ID card and required her to pay a 10,000 yuan deposit, which would be deducted from her prostitution earnings. "The boss gave us the customers' phone numbers, and we sent messages or called the customers pretending to be students," she said. Another defendant, Pi Mou, said that after knowing the true purpose of Gu Huawu's recruitment, "I didn't agree at first, but later I was persuaded by other girls who participated in prostitution." Pi Mou even argued that after engaging in prostitution, she didn't receive a single cent.
All the prostitutes involved in crimes stated that the customers were introduced by familiar "peers" or directly arranged by the bosses, and then they introduced the familiar customers to other young women.
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