Macau police have arrested more than 100 women on prostitution charges at the Venetian casino resort, the first major sex-trade crackdown at the glitzy hotel since it opened in 2007.
The former Portuguese colony's vice squad swooped on the sprawling property early Friday in a raid that coincided with a visit by US gaming tycoon Sheldon Adelson, whose Las Vegas Sands controls the hotel's operator Sands China.
A Sands China spokeswoman declined comment, but said the company would issue a statement later Friday.
The Macau police confirmed the raid but declined to provide details.
The blitz came a week after the Macau government rejected Sands China's application to build another multi-billion dollar casino resort on the city's lucrative Cotai Strip. The firm also operates the Four Seasons and Sands Macao.
More than 70 police officers raided the hotel's massive gaming floor, taking 110 mainland Chinese women and 22 others thought to be controlling them into custody, reports said.
"They stayed for about two hours and then took away more than 100 people they had an interest in, most of them women," a Sands China spokeswoman told the South China Morning Post.
She said the hotel had a policy outlawing sex workers, adding that Adelson's visit was unconnected to the raid.
The Post said the women were forced to pay their pimps a daily "protection fee" of as much as 1,000 Hong Kong dollars (130 US dollars).
Macau is the only Chinese city where casino gambling is allowed and has overtaken Las Vegas in terms of gaming revenue since the sector was opened to foreign competition in 2002.
Source