Man jailed 15 years for brokering online sex work involving thousands of women

Nguyen Huu Thai at a court in HCMC, April 14, 2025. Photo by VnExpress/Binh Nguyen

Nguyen Huu Thai, 26, was Monday found guilty of "brokering prostitution" and "disseminating obscene cultural products" by the HCMC People's Court, which gave him 12 years for the former crime and three for the latter.

After completing a previous prison sentence for illegal drug possession, Thai began using unregistered phone numbers and posed as a woman to join 169 social media groups starting in June 2022 to collect information about women interested in prostitution and recruit them.

He then set up seven Telegram groups under different names, attracting nearly 66,000 members whom he charged for joining.

In all these groups he regularly posted sexy images and names, IDs, birthdates, and measurements of various women.

People seeking to hire a prostitute would contact him to negotiate rates, which were VND5-6 million, rising to VND10-15 million if a woman stayed overnight.

After agreeing on the price, Thai would give the customer’s phone number to the women to arrange the time and location.

The sex workers would pay him a brokerage.

On Jan. 17, on the basis of suspicion, a Criminal Police Department team from the Ministry of Public Security raided a hotel in District 1, HCMC, and caught two couples in the act.

This led them to Thai.

At his house, the police found a large amount of cash and a bank passbook.

The police froze VND8.5 billion that had been in his bank account.

Nguyen Huu Thai at the time of being arrested in January 2025. Photo by police

The prosecutors said that, over a year of brokering pimping, Thai had done thousands of deals for women ranging from professional sex workers to students, models, actresses, singers, and influencers.

He posted 121 videos containing obscene content on social media.

At the trial he admitted he had started procuring in June 2022 and earned around VND15 billion from it.

He said the women had sent him images and information about themselves to post in the secret groups.

For each transaction he earned VND2-3 million.

The sex workers had included two girls under 16, he said, but could not recall how many times he had introduced them to clients.

The court said Thai was dangerous to society and a repeated offender, and posed a serious risk of reoffending, and thus required a strict punishment.

It called for a separate investigation into "prostitution involving minors under 18" in the case of the two girls and prosecution.