Authorities in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, recently cracked a cross-border prostitution case. A 32-year-old former Vietnamese flight attendant, Dinh Thi Thanh Tuyen, and her 40-year-old Chinese boyfriend, Zhang Lei (transliterated), have been charged with using a karaoke restaurant as a front, relying on a "code system" to organize about 200 women for sex work. They have now been formally prosecuted.
According to Sing Tao Daily, citing the indictment by the Ho Chi Minh City Prosecutor's Office, Dinh Thi Thanh Tuyen and Zhang Lei took over the local karaoke restaurant "Tai Nguyen Fortuner II" in mid-2022 and have been managing it together since 2023. To evade inspection, the group only accepted customers from China and Malaysia, and management regularly held meetings to arrange sex service processes.
The most notable management method was their "code roster." The roster listed about 200 female waitstaff, with their names differentiated by uppercase and lowercase letters: uppercase indicated willingness to provide sexual services; lowercase signified only regular services. The roster’s content was updated and shared daily via group software, making it easy to match services according to customer requests.
Police said that when customers requested sex services, managers would divide female staff into "willing" and "not willing" columns for selection. Those chosen would be sent to nearby hotels for transactions. Pricing was set at 4 million VND (624 Malaysian ringgit) per session and 7 million VND (1,092 Malaysian ringgit) for overnight services.
This criminal network was busted on October 17, 2023, when police raided the restaurant and two hotels, catching five women in the act and seizing large sums of cash from the main suspects’ safe.
Before the trial, both defendants had confessed, but Dinh Thi Thanh Tuyen and Zhang Lei claimed they only tacitly allowed "soliciting" to boost restaurant revenue, denying direct commissions. Authorities estimate the group made about 2.4 billion VND (374,500 Malaysian ringgit) during operation. The pair said these earnings were reinvested into restaurant renovations and operations.
Notably, some involved managers told police they had never been paid a salary and could only survive on customer tips. At present, Dinh Thi Thanh Tuyen, Zhang Lei, and five other managers have all been charged with organizing prostitution. The case is expected to go to trial soon.