| Five men were arrested for luring Brazilian K-pop fans to come to Korea and forcing them to provide sex at brothels. / Gettyimagesbank |
According to Ilsan Dongbu Police, Sunday, the five Korean men were arrested recently on suspicions of confinement, human trafficking and pimping.
The men allegedly reached out through social media in early July to seven Brazilian women, mostly women in their 20s to 30s who were interested in Korean pop culture.
They allegedly convinced the women to visit the country by promising to help them become entertainers or models in Korea, even providing the victims with free roundtrip flight tickets. The women arrived in Korea in mid-July.
After they arrived, the men allegedly confiscated their passports, confined them at lodgings in Goyang and Paju of Gyeonggi Province, and canceled their return flights back to Brazil. Then they sent the women to brothels, receiving 2 million won ($1,650) per woman from the pimps, according to the police.
They threatened the women, telling them they needed to work until they paid off the cost of their flight tickets, and that they would be punished for prostitution if they went to the police.
The women managed to contact the Brazilian embassy here on Aug. 17 while the men were negligent in guarding them, and the police, after hearing from the embassy, rescued them from the brothels.
The victims are being protected at a shelter for migrant women.