Conviction in Canada

From the Canadian Press:

VANCOUVER — A Vancouver man convicted of smuggling women into this country to work as prostitutes was sentenced Wednesday to 15 months in jail.

Michael Wai Chi Ng was charged with 22 counts of human smuggling, prostitution offences and offences against the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. He was the first person in Canada charged under the relatively new human trafficking law but Ng was acquitted of the human smuggling charge last year, and was instead convicted of five lesser charges.

Ng was sentenced to nine months for two counts of falsifying immigration documents and an additional six months for the charges of keeping a common bawdy house and two counts of procuring a person to have illicit sexual intercourse with another. Charges of living off the avails on prostitution were dismissed.

The prostitution ring was uncovered when police were called to the massage parlour for a disturbance.During Ng's trial, provincial court Judge Malcolm MacLean was told Ng brought women to Canada, promising them jobs as waitresses and then putting them to work as prostitutes in his east Vancouver massage parlour.

One woman, whose identity is protected by court order, told MacLean she had been brought to Canada by Ng to work in what she thought was a restaurant.Instead of a waitress job, the woman testified she was taken to a Ng's massage parlour and told she was expected to pay him $11,000 a month by prostituting herself.

Read the full article