Jail, fine for Balestier condo facility officer who ran brothel in shop unit there

SINGAPORE — While working as a facility officer at the Rocca Balestier condominium, Tan Chor Koon set up a massage outlet at a shop unit there and got two women in their 50s to provide sexual services to customers.

He received almost S$10,000 from their prostitution activities and also took money from them to advertise their services online.

He further capitalised on his day job, monitoring people around the area through the building’s closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras and alerting his employees of possible raids by the police.

On Monday (July 25), Tan, 47, was jailed for seven months and two weeks and fined S$2,850.

The Singaporean pleaded guilty to three charges under the Women’s Charter, including managing the unit as a brothel, along with another offence of running an unlicensed massage establishment.

Eight other similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing purposes.

The two Singaporean women who worked for him, aged 55 and 57, cannot be named due to court orders to protect their identities.

The court heard that they worked at JT Beauty Parlour at the Rocca Balestier mixed-use development, located along Balestier Road. Tan began operating the outlet in May 2019.

He registered the business with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority as a beauty salon and spa, but the shop on the ground floor did not provide these services.

Tan did not dictate how much the two women should charge their customers, but they had to pay him S$40 for each one they served. He received around S$9,850 in total this way.

The women charged their customers between S$110 and S$180 for services including a massage with sexual intercourse.

Soon after starting work there, they noticed that they could not secure walk-in customers because the shop glass panel was covered with stickers that prevented people from looking through to the interiors.

In order to attract more customers and earn more, they asked Tan to advertise their services online. He agreed and told them to share the advertisement fee — S$400 a month for every advertisement — equally between them and himself.

He then advertised their services on the website “Sglonelyguy”. 

Tan also created chat groups on the WhatsApp and WeChat messaging platforms to manage the operations. They included the two women, his girlfriend, himself and others.

At the end of every day, the two women either placed his share of their earnings in a drawer at the massage shop or handed over the earnings to him personally.

The older woman gave him around S$3,000 between August and November 2019.

He directed them to report the timings of their customers’ bookings in the chat groups, and they also told him if they needed to take a day off or report later for work.

On one occasion, he told them to dispose of used condoms that had been discarded in a dustbin in the unit.

He was also authorised to access the building’s fire command centre where the CCTV monitors were.

He was employed by Rocco Balestier's management as a facility officer to look after the day-to-day management and operation of the building.

Even though he did not have control rights to the CCTV cameras, he used them to conduct surveillance on the massage shop and its perimeter, looking out for people who could be police officers and alerting the two women of possible raids.

On Oct 21, 2019, he saw a male person loitering and taking photographs of a unit on the second floor.

He took a photo of the man from the CCTV monitor and sent it to the women, telling them to remember the man’s face and asking them to delete the messages after reading them.

Four days later, he spotted another person and sent warning messages to the chat groups.

When he approached the person to verify the purpose of his visit, he alerted the groups that the coast was clear.

Police officers from Tanglin Police Division eventually raided the massage unit on Nov 7, 2019. Tan was arrested that same day.

For living in part on prostitution earnings, he could have been jailed up to five years and fined up to S$10,000.

For managing a brothel, he could have been fined up to S$3,000 or jailed up to three years, or both.