MIRI: Six women from China and two from Thailand were found holed up in a room when a team from Bukit Aman and Miri CID raided a massage parlour at a commercial centre here on Sunday evening.
The victims being escorted to Miri centre police station (CPS).
Police pounced at about 6pm following a tip-off by a victim.
The victims are aged between 18 and 21 years, and the two Thai women are cousins.
Three men – two of them locals and a China national – have been detained to facilitate investigation into this suspected human trafficking case.
One of the suspects is the 46-year-old owner of the massage parlour, and the China national is believed to be the `middleman’.
Sources said the eight women were promised jobs as salesgirls by a middleman.
However, when they arrived here, their dreams turned into nightmares. They were believed forced to work as sex workers, instead, and were believed to have been held against their will for almost a month.
Sources said the raiding team found 23 rooms inside the massage parlour, with numbers attached on each door.
During the raid, police seized RM1,085 in cash, five packets of condoms of various brands, eight receipts, four units of walkie talkie, a ledger book, a calculator, and a handphone.
The case is being investigated under Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007.
This raid was the second by the same Bukit Aman and Miri CID team this month to curb human trafficking activities.
In similar raid last Wednesday evening, the police team raided a room at Jalan North Yu Seng and rescued eight women from China.
The victims were held in their room for eight months before being rescued by the police.