The owners of two separate massage and coining parlours were sent to the Phnom Penh Municipal court yesterday for questioning after allegedly using their businesses as fronts for brothels. 

Keo Thea, chief of the anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection police, said 50-year-old Che Thouthay and 40-year-old Siev Mey, Vietnamese women who owned different parlours, had been arrested on Monday during separate raids on their businesses in the capital’s Chamkarmon district.

The police chief said 11 female employees, six Vietnamese and five Cambodians, all over the age of 20, had been rescued from the two parlours and sent to temporarily stay at the Ministry of Social Affairs Rehabilitation Centre.

“They [the parlour owners] were arrested while police raided their coining and massage shops in the Psar Doeum Thkov commune. They are accused of offering illegal prostitution inside their shops.”

In an unrelated case, ano­­­ther Vietnamese woman, 43, was sentenced to six years’ jail after being found guilty of operating a ring inside her massage parlour earlier this year in the Toul Kork district.

Presiding Judge for the Phnom Penh Municipal Court Oeung Seang accused Thath Thi Le of having operated a brothel inside a coining and massage parlour.

“She has illegally provided sexual services inside her shop, so the court sentenced her to six years in jail,” he said.

Thath Thi Le and her defence attorney could not be reached for comment.