HCMC restaurant busted for prostitution

Nguyen Thi Cam Nguyen (3rd, L), and three managers of the 97 Restaurant are under arrest in HCMC, Nov. 5, 2023. Photo VnExpress/Nhat Vy

They arrested Nguyen Thi Cam Nguyen and three managers of 97 Restaurant on Suong Nguyet Anh Street Sunday for "brokering sex services."

They said the restaurant opened in 2018 and Nguyen paid high salaries and commissions to hire young women as waitresses who doubled up as sex workers for guests.

After keeping the restaurant under surveillance for a while, police officers from District 1 and the Ministry of Public Security raided it last Friday and caught more than 50 waitresses in sexual acts with guests in 15 karaoke rooms.

None of those rooms are legally registered.

The 97 Restaurant on Suong Nguyet Anh Street in HCMC's District 1. Photo by VnExpress/Nhat Vy

Another group raided several hotels near the restaurant and found four waitresses with clients who paid VND12 million a night.

The women confessed they had been sent by the managers of Restaurant 97 after the clients had earlier partied there.

The police said the restaurant has received thousands of customers and earned tens of billions of dong (VND1 billion = US$41,000) a month from prostitution.

They are expanding the investigation.

In Vietnam, sex work is classified as a social evil and pimping is a crime.