Qingpu cops arrest 30 in prostitution crackdown

Qingpu district police have arrested 30 people in a recent crackdown on prostitution, including a 75-year-old man who paid for sex at a storefront brothel, police said Tuesday.

Police officers found evidence of prostitution at 20 of the 140 or so establishments that they investigated in the crackdown, including karaoke clubs and bathhouses, according to a press release from the Qingpu District Public Security Bureau.

In most of the cases, police heard about the establishments from local residents.

In the press release, police said they were surprised to find that a man in 70s was paying for sex.

Officers arrested the man, surnamed Chen, on December 11 after receiving a report about a storefront brothel, which operated under the paper-thin guise of a barber shop, on Jinghua Road in Xujing town.

Inside the brothel, there was a secret room where police found Chen in the company of a 42-year-old prostitute surnamed Pei.

Chen admitted that he knew about the storefront's services when he went there around 9 pm.

Chen and Pei have been detained for administrative punishment.

Police called on the public to report cases of prostitution.