Beijing's procuratorate organs approved the arrest of 77 people in three Beijing nightclubs for engaging in prostitution, Beijing police said on its official Sina Weibo account Tuesday.
The arrests were made at three Beijing nightclubs, including Baoli Club, Landai Club and Lihai Mingyuan nightclub. The Beijing police will further investigate the case and file a lawsuit, it said.
In December 2016, Beijing police arrested hundreds of people in Baoli Club, located in Beijing's Dongcheng district, and two other clubs in the Haidian district for their suspected involvement in prostitution, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau said in a statement on Sunday on its Sina Weibo account.
Police have closed the three clubs, said the Legal Mirror, a Beijing-based newspaper.
A janitor at the Baoli Club told the Legal Mirror that around 8 pm, the police arrived and blocked the parking lot, before taking away about 60 people, including waiters and security guards from the club.
Janitors at the Landai Club said the surprise police visit took place between 8 pm and 9 pm, and over 300 club employees were taken away, including over 100 women.
The crackdown on entertainment venues linked to the sex industry provoked memories of the shutdown of a prominent nightclub in Beijing in 2010, Passion Club, also known as Tianshang Renjian (paradise on earth) in Chinese. It was shut down for six months, the maximum penalty for entertainment venues that provide escort services, the Global Times previously reported.
Beijing police have raided thousands of entertainment venues, closed down 35 of them and detained 1,132 people, to clean up the city's sex industry, Xinhua reported in 2010.
