Women in crime: High-class brothels fronted as health centres; gambling den raided

At least 36 women and girls in their early teens were arrested during police raids on upmarket brothels in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo and its suburbs, the country’s ‘Sunday Times’ newspaper reported.

A senior police officer said the brothels in plush houses in Mount Lavinia, Maradana, Horana, Kirulapone and Kalubowila, operated under the cover of health centres providing native treatments.

The brothels had both local and foreign women, mainly from Russia, and they catered to the rich, Officer-in-Charge of the Walana Anti-Vice Division IP Duminda Balasuriya told ‘Sunday Times’.

He added that during the raid they discovered brothels opposite the Kirulapone Police Station, close to a girls’ school, at the Technical College junction in Maradana and adjoining the Colombo South Teaching Hospital in Kalubowila.

IP Balasuriya said, “During a raid on a brothel on Hotel Road in Mount Lavinia, we found that clients could make the selection on Skype after interviewing the women on the other side. Thereafter, they are told to pay a cash advance. Assisting the women were three-wheeler drivers who worked as pimps and also on her payroll were muscle men to deal with unruly clients.”

Something between Rs25,000 to Rs30,000 were charged from clients at the brothels for a local sex worker and Rs50,000 for a foreigner. “The women raked in something like Rs. 300,000 per day,” he said.

IP Balasuriya further added that “The woman paid a monthly rent of Rs50,000 for the building. In another incident, police busted a mobile brothel during the search of a luxury car driven by a woman during the early hours of the morning at Slave Island in Colombo. At the time of interception, there were four other women occupants in the vehicle and they turned out to be sex workers.”

With the assistance of hotel employees, guards employed at the city’s casinos and three-wheeler drivers, the woman had been in the business of supplying sex workers to clients for the past 15 years.

Clients failing to pay on time were dealt with by goons hired by the woman. Clients were sometimes robbed of their cash and other belongings after being taken to remote locations.

“Two such victims tipped off the police on the woman’s activities and gave valuable information,” IP Balasuriya said.

Women’s gambling den raided

Eight women were arrested by the Ambalangoda police in Sri Lanka’s south on Friday, after raiding a women’s gambling den in Seenigama, the ‘Divaina’ newspaper reported.

The arrested tried to flee the place when police entered the gambling den but were chased and arrested by women police officers.

A senior police officer said t husbands of the arrested women had complained to the police that their wives were stealing money from their wallets for gambling.

“They even neglected their children after getting addicted to gambling,” police said.

The husbands had also complained that money lenders visited their homes demanding repayment as their wives often borrowed money for gambling.

The arrested women were fined Rs500 each after being produced before the Balapitiya Magistrate.