Hong Kong police clear top cop found in massage parlour raid - The Straits Times

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HONG KONG (AFP) - Hong Kong police on Tuesday (May 18) said they had cleared a senior officer of any wrongdoing after he was discovered at an unlicensed massage parlour that was suspected of selling sex.

Mr Frederic Choi, the director of the National Security Department, was caught in a police raid in late March at an unlicensed massage business just a stone's throw from the city's police headquarters.

The scandal leaked to local media last week and has since dominated press coverage.


It was also a reputational blow for the elite security unit which was created last year to prosecute offences under a sweeping national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong to curb the city's democracy movement.

On Tuesday, officers revealed Mr Choi, 51, had been cleared of "any unlawful or immoral act" behaviour.

"Visiting an unlicensed parlour per se doesn't violate any law in Hong Kong," head of the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau Ryan Wong told reporters.


During the March raid, six women with Hong Kong ID cards were arrested on suspicion of prostitution, Wong added, confirming that police suspected the massage parlour was operating as a brothel.

Asked why the force kept details of the raid quiet for over a month before it leaked to local media, Mr Wong said officers needed time for "all-rounded, multi-pronged and in-depth investigation".

The findings have been reported to the police chief and the Department of Justice, pending further instruction, he added.

Under laws that date back to colonial British rule, individual sex work is lawful in Hong Kong.

Keeping a vice establishment or procuring a person to become a prostitute is an offence that can carry up to ten years in jail.

Critics say the current laws penalise predominantly women sex workers from plying their trade safely in groups and push them to work as individuals which is more dangerous.

Nonetheless, businesses such as massage parlours that quietly offer sex services are ubiquitous throughout the city.