Under the guise of hiring salespeople and other roles, a prostitution ring was recruiting women. They used the excuse of having family members severely ill to solicit customers. The prostitutes were trained to appear as innocent students with plain faces and straight hair... From May 10th to 11th, after being prosecuted by the Xishan District People's Procuratorate in Kunming, Yunnan Province, the Xishan District Court held a trial for this case involving 19 defendants charged with organizing and assisting in prostitution, but no verdict was announced in court.
It is reported that among the nine defendants accused of organizing prostitution, Gu Huayong, Gu Huaicheng and others were either couples or siblings. Li Mou, Pi Mou and eight other defendants were prostitutes themselves, who were also introducing their "colleagues" into prostitution, thus prosecuted for assisting in the organization of prostitution. Another defendant, Huang Daiyong, was a butcher who made special pig blood for the prostitutes, and he was also charged with aiding in the organization of prostitution.
Three brothers successively engaged in illegal activities. Gu Huayong started working in Kunming in 1992, initially earning a living through house decoration, supermarket operation, and driving a bread van. Although not extremely wealthy, he gradually earned hundreds of thousands of yuan and bought a house in Kunming through his efforts. In 2001, he moved into his new home and brought his wife and children to Kunming.
Gu Huayong was not satisfied with this. Since 2005, he had the idea of organizing prostitution to make money. "At the time, my wife opposed it and we had a big argument over it," said Gu Huayong. He didn't listen to his wife Zhou Nengju's advice. Starting from 2007, he targeted young women with lower levels of education, using excuses such as selling cosmetics, clothing, or doing housekeeping services. He registered job advertisements at housekeeping companies and recruited several young women around the age of 20, organizing them to engage in prostitution and taking a percentage of their earnings. Later, Zhou Nengju also joined her husband's "business."
A year after Gu Huayong made money from business, his brother Gu Huaicheng also began organizing women into prostitution. According to Gu Huaicheng's confession, he registered under the pretense of hiring nannies 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, managing them by collecting deposits. "At most, there were nine young girls with us, and at least two," said Gu Huaicheng.
During the trial, both Gu Huaicheng and his brother stated that their two families operated independently, though there were instances of "borrowing prostitutes" from each other, "but they had to pay." Besides Gu Huaicheng, Gu Huayong's younger brother Gu Huawu later also joined the ranks of his older brothers.
Eventually, this family-style crime group expanded to include nine members, including the three Gu brothers and their wives, brothers-in-law, and sister.
Sending mass text messages to attract customers, Gu Huayong and others thought of methods like online chatting, distributing cards, and getting referrals from acquaintances. They also sent mass text messages with content like "Brother, hello, I am a pitiful girl. My father is seriously ill, and due to our poor family, we don't have money for treatment. If you are willing to help, I am willing to offer my virginity..." to random phone numbers.
The "advertisement" was eye-catching and tempting. After attracting customers, Gu Huayong and others would first negotiate the price and location of the sexual transaction before letting the prostitutes contact the clients specifically. According to the arrangement, the prostitutes would record the phone numbers of the customers. Some even introduced classmates or friends, further introducing other prostitutes to the customers while profiting themselves.
The prosecutor explained that Gu Huayong's family-style crime group organized prostitution in seven steps:
Step one: Recruitment. Using the pretense of hiring clothing salespeople, they recruited young female migrant workers aged 18 to 21 through labor markets and housekeeping companies. Step two: Brainwashing. Upon finding suitable applicants, they would take them to pre-rented accommodation rooms, providing food and lodging while enticing them with high incomes to deceive them into engaging in prostitution. Step three: Signing agreements. Once the applicants agreed, their ID cards would be confiscated, and they would sign an agreement. The content included how the earnings from prostitution would be split, requiring the prostitutes to pay a 10,000 yuan deposit, prohibiting them from staying out overnight without permission, and not allowing them to refuse prostitution arbitrarily. Step four: Training. The prostitutes were trained on how to pretend to be virgins and student sisters. Step five: Organizing prostitution. Step six: Taking a cut. Requiring the prostitutes to record each transaction, they would collect their share of the profits at the end of each month. If the prostitute contacted the customer herself, she could keep 50% of the earnings; otherwise, she could only keep 30%. Step seven: Regular health checks. If any of the prostitutes were found to be pregnant, they would be arranged for abortions.
Expanding their prostitution network across various cities in Yunnan and some provinces outside, Zhao was arranged to engage in prostitution over 30 times, covering hotels in places like Kunming, Dali in Yunnan, Lhasa in Tibet, and Chongqing, earning a total of 80,000 yuan, from which Zhao took a 20,000 yuan commission.
Because some customers preferred student-like or virgin prostitutes, who paid more, Gu Huayong later learned to use specially prepared pig blood to fake virginity for the prostitutes. To make the prostitutes look like students, he arranged for fake student IDs and had them wear sportswear, keep straight hair, and avoid makeup.
Defendant Huang Daiyong was involved in the crime of assisting in the organization of prostitution by providing specially prepared pig blood. Originally a regular vendor in a Kunming market specializing in pork and pig blood, 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 someone ordered by phone, he would deliver it personally.
After receiving reports from the public, the police conducted simultaneous raids at ten locations in Kunming and Jinchuan County, Honghe Prefecture on August 3rd, 2010, successfully capturing Gu Huayong, Zhou Nengju, and others involved in the prostitution ring. They seized 107 notebooks recording prostitution transactions, 17 agreements signed by prostitutes, 362 solicitation cards, confiscating 112,000 yuan in cash, 2,000 Hong Kong dollars, 13 bank cards, 8 passbooks, and 5 vehicles related to the case.
According to the records in the seized notebooks, the total amount of prostitution fees involved reached 22,829,000 yuan.
After learning about the case, the Xishan District People's Procuratorate in Kunming dispatched three people, including the deputy procurator general and key personnel, to legally intervene in the investigation. After reviewing the evidence collected by the police, the prosecutors suggested further retrieving materials related to prostitution administrative penalties in Kunming. Subsequently, the Supervision Department of Xishan District reviewed the case again, repeatedly, no less than five times. During this period, the prosecutors worked overtime, carefully checking over a hundred notebooks, suggesting that the police arrest the organizers and the prostitutes involved in crimes in two separate batches; considering the active role played by the prostitutes involved in crimes within the group, they recommended that the police prosecute them for assisting in the organization of prostitution.
During the public trial of the case, the prosecution team composed of Wang Jingcai, head of the Public Prosecution Department of Xishan District People's Procuratorate, Bai Wen and Shen Rong, presented evidence and cross-examined using multimedia. Due to thorough preparation, the trial lasted one day less than the expected three days.
Although the Gu brothers all claimed that they did not force anyone into prostitution, during the trial, the testimonies of the prostitutes differed from those of the Gu brothers. Defendant Li revealed that Gu Huawu had confiscated her ID card, requiring her to pay a 10,000 yuan deposit, which would be deducted from her prostitution earnings. "The boss gave us the phone numbers of the customers, and we sent messages or called them pretending to be students," she said. Defendant Pi admitted that after knowing the real purpose of Gu Huawu's recruitment, "I didn't agree at first, but later I was persuaded by other girls participating in prostitution." Pi even argued that after engaging in prostitution, she hadn't received a single penny.
All the prostitutes involved in crimes stated that the customers were introduced by acquaintances in the "trade" or directly arranged by the bosses, and then they introduced the customers to other young women they knew.
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