ZHENGZHOU -- Police in central China on Wednesday disclosed details in a "sex slave" case, saying Li Hao, the man who held six women as sex slaves in a dungeon for two years and killed two of them, claimed his motive was to make money through webcam prostitution.
Li, a retired firefighter, has been arrested and is facing charges of murder, rape and illegal detention, police in the city of Luoyang, Henan Province, said in a statement.
The 34-year-old man, who is married and has an eight-month-old son, told police his motive was to make money by forcing the women to strip and chat with customers via webcams.
Li, who worked for Luoyang's technological supervision bureau before being detained on September 6, is accused of killing and burying two of the six women, who he kidnapped from karaoke bars, hair salons and a massage shop, in the dungeon he dug below his basement.
The four women rescued from the dungeon have also been detained for allegedly helping Li torture a woman to death, said the statement.
Li bought the basement in 2008. He started digging in the basement in August 2009. He dug at night and carried away the soil in nylon bags before dawn.
The room the women were kept in only covers four square meters and Li put books and a laptop without Internet access there for them to use kill time, police said.
Li ran his webcam chat business from his basement.
Police said Li repeatedly raped the women, who were held for two to 21 months.
Police raided the basement on Sept. 3 on a tip off from relatives of one of the women who managed to escape.
Last week, the police chief of Luoyang apologized for failing to detect the crime earlier and suspended the work of four police in relation to the case.
