`Singapore public servants probed in sex scandal`

Singaporean Police have confirmed the investigation into a suspected online vice operation.

Singapore: Several Singapore public servants are being probed for their alleged involvement in an online prostitution ring in the city state, reports said on Sunday.

Though the names of those being investigated were not revealed but it includes a former principal of a popular Singapore school, according to the Sunday media reports.

Police have confirmed the investigation into a suspected online vice operation as part of enforcement efforts to clamp down on vice syndicates.

The probe comes after another online prostitution ring operating out of posh condominium was busted by the police last December with the arrest 23 suspects.

Alvin Yeo, member of a Government Parliamentary Committee for Home Affairs and Law said the Internet has changed the nature of crime and increased its spread and reach. "This also means we have to be increasingly vigilant of the Web being used as a vehicle to commit crime," The Sunday Times quoted Yeo as saying, who is also a top Singapore lawyer.

The latest revelations come hot on the heels of another scandal involving two top civil servants. The former head of Singapore Civil Defence Force, Peter Lim Sin Pang and former head of Central Narcotics Bureau, Ng Boon Gay, are also under scanner for their alleged unprofessional relationships with a woman IT executive.

The reports said case of the two officials is understood to revolve around the tender process of IT products. Elaborating on the online prostitution ring, the report said women from countries like Thailand, China and South Korea were being offered on the website at a price range of SGD80 to about SGD300.

Eastern European and Russian women were also being made available online.

Most of these women were on short-term visas and the syndicates involved in the ring gets regular "batches".

Websites advertising sexual services from women have proliferated in Singapore in recent years, and some Internet forum touts itself as "Singapore`s Virtual Sex Hub".

Last week, the city state`s police presented crime data Singapore`s singles over 40 being swindled of SGD2.3 million by overseas online romeos last year.

The Internet romeo would befriend a usually "lonely heart" and persuaded the victim presenting sobbing stories of his misery, getting the victim to deposit money in joint accounts in overseas banks. The lover would then elope with the money, leaving the "lonely heart" high a dry.

PTI

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