Missing getai singers found in Geylang
By Alvin Lim and Pearly Tan
The New Paper
Wednesday, Oct 19, 2011
When three performers from China failed to show up at the airport as scheduled, a getai operator was desperate to track them down.
Mr Ng Geok Sun, 53, put up posters in Geylang and Chinatown offering rewards totalling $6,000 to anyone who could help him locate the missing women.
His plan worked.
One woman was found allegedly prostituting herself in Geylang, while another was discovered working as a hostess in a pub, also in Geylang.
The two women - Luo Xiaoyue, 32, and Zuo Manli, 22 - have since been deported.
The remaining woman, Zhao Qunli, 29, is still missing.
Mr Ng said he made a police report about the missing women before putting up about 250 posters with their pictures and passport details.
He was worried about losing the $15,000 he had put up as security bond to employ the women as entertainers if he failed to find them within a month.
He had paid a $5,000 deposit for each of them when he applied for the In-Principle Approval letter from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).
The getai company manager told The New Paper in Mandarin that to hire the women, he had gone through a middleman in China, communicating via QQ, an instant messaging software popular in China.
The middleman was to arrange for the women, who are from different provinces and do not know each other, to come here to work as getai performers.
"He showed me their pictures and I agreed to employ them because he said they could sing and dance," said Mr Ng, who was going to pay them a basic monthly salary of $1,000 plus lodging.
He said that the middleman had previously arranged for a mainland Chinese woman to work for him.
"That employee finished her six-month contract without problem. That was why I chose to work with him again," he said.
Mr Ng said that the three women were to arrive in Singapore on Sept 22 on two afternoon flights.
When they failed to show up, he called the middleman, but he did not pick up. So he waited at the airport till 6pm, then left to make a police report.
It was then that he found out from the police that the women were already in Singapore.
"I was told the first woman (Luo) arrived in Singapore on Sept 13, and the other two on Sept 21," he said.
The police confirmed that a report was lodged about the three missing women.
Mr Ng said that his subsequent calls to the middleman in China also went unanswered.
"I asked my friends to call him and he picked up their calls. But when they broached the topic of the missing women, he hung up and never picked up their calls again," he said.
Acted quickly
Realising that he needed to find them quickly, the next day, Mr Ng put up a bounty of $2,000 for Luo and $1,000 each for Zuo and Zhao.
"I needed (Luo) to be found quickly, as she had entered Singapore earlier," he said.
And within two days, Mr Ng got his first lead.
On Sept 25, someone called to tell him that Luo had been found standing at a Geylang roadside, possibly "soliciting" customers as a prostitute.
Mr Ng said that the caller had, after a brief struggle with the woman, turned her over to the police - who in turn handed her over to MOM - before calling him.
The caller, who received the $2,000 reward, wanted to remain anonymous.
After getting in touch with MOM, Mr Ng then took Luo to meet his boss.
He said that when confronted, Luo wept and told them that the middleman had "forced her to change her flight to an earlier one".
She claimed to have been paid 1,000 yuan (S$200) to make the swop, and also claimed that the middleman had cheated her of 67,000 yuan, he added.
Mr Ng said that upon hearing Luo's side of the story, his boss sympathised with her and considered allowing her to remain in Singapore.
However, as Luo's passport was already being held by the authorities, they had no choice but to let her be deported.
She flew back to China on Sept 28.
The next day, Mr Ng received another call, telling him that another of the women, Zuo, had been found working as a hostess in a Geylang pub.
He said that the caller had spotted her at the pub and, recognising her face from the posters, wanted to take her to see Mr Ng at his office in Jalan Besar.
Luo initially resisted, but eventually gave in after the caller got hold of her handbag and passport.The caller received $1,000 for finding Luo, but also requested to remain anonymous, he added.
Mr Ng said that although he had not previously encountered such a problem in his 13 years of running the getai business, it is not uncommon.
"This type of short-term visit pass is rather easy to obtain, and I believe some foreigners who want to work here make use of it to earn fast cash as KTV hostesses," he said.
He added that some friends who are nightclub operators have had "similar bad experiences".
Mr Ng is now worried that he may not locate the third woman, Zhao, before Nov 10, after which he may lose his $5,000 security bond.
As a result, he has decided to increase the monetary reward for finding Zhao to $3,000. He imposed a deadline of Nov 4, before which he hoped she would be found.
He said he received a warning letter from MOM last week, but it did not state a deadline to find the woman.
He added that as Zhao may no longer be in the areas where he put up the posters previously, he now intends to put up his posters in other areas.
Mr Ng isn't the only employer to go out of his way to track down missing workers.
Last year, TNP reported on a KTV lounge boss who mobilised a team to comb the streets of Geylang on a six-day hunt for two runaway China employees.
For a foreign worker to enter Singapore, the employer must apply for an In-Principle Approval and place a security deposit of $5,000 with MOM.
When the employee arrives here, he must have a medical examination to be certified fit to work and apply for a Work Permit within 14 days.
Employers whose workers go missing will lose the security deposit.
According to MOM guidelines, the employer will recover half of the security bond if he provides proof that he has made reasonable efforts to find the worker.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
By Alvin Lim and Pearly Tan
The New Paper
Wednesday, Oct 19, 2011
When three performers from China failed to show up at the airport as scheduled, a getai operator was desperate to track them down.
Mr Ng Geok Sun, 53, put up posters in Geylang and Chinatown offering rewards totalling $6,000 to anyone who could help him locate the missing women.
His plan worked.
One woman was found allegedly prostituting herself in Geylang, while another was discovered working as a hostess in a pub, also in Geylang.
The two women - Luo Xiaoyue, 32, and Zuo Manli, 22 - have since been deported.
The remaining woman, Zhao Qunli, 29, is still missing.
Mr Ng said he made a police report about the missing women before putting up about 250 posters with their pictures and passport details.
He was worried about losing the $15,000 he had put up as security bond to employ the women as entertainers if he failed to find them within a month.
He had paid a $5,000 deposit for each of them when he applied for the In-Principle Approval letter from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).
The getai company manager told The New Paper in Mandarin that to hire the women, he had gone through a middleman in China, communicating via QQ, an instant messaging software popular in China.
The middleman was to arrange for the women, who are from different provinces and do not know each other, to come here to work as getai performers.
"He showed me their pictures and I agreed to employ them because he said they could sing and dance," said Mr Ng, who was going to pay them a basic monthly salary of $1,000 plus lodging.
He said that the middleman had previously arranged for a mainland Chinese woman to work for him.
"That employee finished her six-month contract without problem. That was why I chose to work with him again," he said.
Mr Ng said that the three women were to arrive in Singapore on Sept 22 on two afternoon flights.
When they failed to show up, he called the middleman, but he did not pick up. So he waited at the airport till 6pm, then left to make a police report.
It was then that he found out from the police that the women were already in Singapore.
"I was told the first woman (Luo) arrived in Singapore on Sept 13, and the other two on Sept 21," he said.
The police confirmed that a report was lodged about the three missing women.
Mr Ng said that his subsequent calls to the middleman in China also went unanswered.
"I asked my friends to call him and he picked up their calls. But when they broached the topic of the missing women, he hung up and never picked up their calls again," he said.
Acted quickly
Realising that he needed to find them quickly, the next day, Mr Ng put up a bounty of $2,000 for Luo and $1,000 each for Zuo and Zhao.
"I needed (Luo) to be found quickly, as she had entered Singapore earlier," he said.
And within two days, Mr Ng got his first lead.
On Sept 25, someone called to tell him that Luo had been found standing at a Geylang roadside, possibly "soliciting" customers as a prostitute.
Mr Ng said that the caller had, after a brief struggle with the woman, turned her over to the police - who in turn handed her over to MOM - before calling him.
The caller, who received the $2,000 reward, wanted to remain anonymous.
After getting in touch with MOM, Mr Ng then took Luo to meet his boss.
He said that when confronted, Luo wept and told them that the middleman had "forced her to change her flight to an earlier one".
She claimed to have been paid 1,000 yuan (S$200) to make the swop, and also claimed that the middleman had cheated her of 67,000 yuan, he added.
Mr Ng said that upon hearing Luo's side of the story, his boss sympathised with her and considered allowing her to remain in Singapore.
However, as Luo's passport was already being held by the authorities, they had no choice but to let her be deported.
She flew back to China on Sept 28.
The next day, Mr Ng received another call, telling him that another of the women, Zuo, had been found working as a hostess in a Geylang pub.
He said that the caller had spotted her at the pub and, recognising her face from the posters, wanted to take her to see Mr Ng at his office in Jalan Besar.
Luo initially resisted, but eventually gave in after the caller got hold of her handbag and passport.The caller received $1,000 for finding Luo, but also requested to remain anonymous, he added.
Mr Ng said that although he had not previously encountered such a problem in his 13 years of running the getai business, it is not uncommon.
"This type of short-term visit pass is rather easy to obtain, and I believe some foreigners who want to work here make use of it to earn fast cash as KTV hostesses," he said.
He added that some friends who are nightclub operators have had "similar bad experiences".
Mr Ng is now worried that he may not locate the third woman, Zhao, before Nov 10, after which he may lose his $5,000 security bond.
As a result, he has decided to increase the monetary reward for finding Zhao to $3,000. He imposed a deadline of Nov 4, before which he hoped she would be found.
He said he received a warning letter from MOM last week, but it did not state a deadline to find the woman.
He added that as Zhao may no longer be in the areas where he put up the posters previously, he now intends to put up his posters in other areas.
Mr Ng isn't the only employer to go out of his way to track down missing workers.
Last year, TNP reported on a KTV lounge boss who mobilised a team to comb the streets of Geylang on a six-day hunt for two runaway China employees.
For a foreign worker to enter Singapore, the employer must apply for an In-Principle Approval and place a security deposit of $5,000 with MOM.
When the employee arrives here, he must have a medical examination to be certified fit to work and apply for a Work Permit within 14 days.
Employers whose workers go missing will lose the security deposit.
According to MOM guidelines, the employer will recover half of the security bond if he provides proof that he has made reasonable efforts to find the worker.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
