16 year old Thai girl arrested for acting as pimp, offering underage teenage prostitutes

Cyber Crimes Investigation Bureau (CCIB) officers arrested a 16 year old girl who acted as a pimp, providing underage teenage prostitutes to customers in Kamphaeng Phet, central Thailand.

The CCIB today arrested a teenage girl named A and conducted a raid at her house on Tae Sa Road in Kamphaeng Phet province after receiving a tip-off from the non-governmental organisation Alliance Anti Trafic (ATT). The ATT reported that A advertised sex services on the Twitter account @you096543.

An officer pretended to be a customer and contacted A via a LINE account provided on Twitter. A informed the police customer that one teenage girl cost 1,100 baht for one hour, and a hotel fare was excluded. She then sent pictures of four teenage prostitutes to the officers to pick.

The officer reserved the service and urged A to send the prostitute to him at Lanna Resort in the province. A requested a deposit of 200 baht and told the officer to pay 900 baht more at the hotel.

The CCIB monitored the hotel until A and the four prostitutes arrived, aged 14 to 18 years old. Officers pretended to pay the rest of the service fees and arrested A after her criminal action clearly presented.

A admitted to her illegal action. She explained that she previously offered the sex service by herself. Many customers urged her to find more teenage girls for them, so she convinced others to sell sex. She advertised the service on Twitter and sent the girls to customers at each hotel in the province. She collected 500 baht from the prostitutes and let them keep 600 baht.

Only A faces legal charges for her actions as CCIB officers considered the teenage prostitutes to be victims. They are now under the care of the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (M-Society).

A faces four charges including:

• Section 6 of the Act on Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution: Operating human trafficking from child prostitution. Act against the victims aged over 15 years old but not over 18 years old, the penalty will be imprisonment from six to 15 years and a fine from 600,000 to 1,500,000 baht.
• Section 9 of the Act on Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution: Luring or taking away any person for prostitution, even if that person agrees. The penalty will be imprisonment from one to 10 years and a fine from 20,000 to 200,000 baht.
• Section 282 of the Criminal Law: procuring, luring, or taking away any person in order to satisfy the desire of others even if that person agrees. The penalty will be imprisonment from one to 10 years and a fine from 2,000 to 200,000 baht.
• Section 26 of the Child Protection Act: compel, threaten, induce, encourage or allow a child to behave inappropriately. The penalty will be imprisonment for up to three months, a fine of up to 30,000 baht, or both.