Queensland: Black trade in sex flourishes

ORGANISED crime is strengthening its grip on Queensland's prostitution industry, thwarting attempts by police and the State Government to control the flourishing trade in sex.

Legal brothel operators frustrated by ineffective policing of the laws governing the sale of sexual services claim illegal operators meet regularly for breakfast to discuss their industry, that crime figures have arranged for some taxi drivers to be paid commissions to drive passengers to illegal brothels, and prostitutes are taking part in organised sex tours of rural towns.

The Courier-Mail also has been told that an Asian crime gang with Australian partners has operated Asian gambling tours to the Gold Coast where prostitutes were made available free of charge. The group made most of its money through high interest rates charged on large gambling loans to clients. The organisation representing the state's 23 legal brothels said attempts by police to seek out those who helped organise Queensland's huge illegal escort agency had not quelled its growth. "It's bigger and better than it ever has been," said Nick Inskip, spokesman for the Queensland Adult Business Association.

It is 20 years since reporting on illegal prostitution by The Courier-Mail, and follow-ups by the ABC, led to the Fitzgerald inquiry and the subsequent exposure of a corrupt police force involved in running brothels and accepting bribes in return for protection. There is no suggestion police are involved in the current resurgence of illegal prostitution. On the contrary, they are hamstrung in their efforts to stem the growth of illegal operators. Invitations for the police to comment for this series of articles were declined.

But the Queensland Adult Business Association, representing the state's 23 legal brothels, is an outspoken opponent of the new regulatory system. Its members pay tens of thousands of dollars in licence fees, income and company tax, only to see the illegal industry thrive, tax-free. Mr Inskip said the illegal industry had been transformed by technology. "It takes advantage today of the internet, of new technologies, a whole range of different techniques to advantage themselves . . . they can recruit as they like."

In Queensland, about 25 per cent of the sex industry is legal and takes the form of licensed brothels. The remaining 75 per cent is comprised of individual or solo sex workers who operate legally if they work alone, and the state's massive illegal escort industry. Mr Inskip said the illegal industry had organised individual workers into networks of what otherwise would appear to be legal solo sex workers. He said there was evidence of the illegal industry recruiting teenage schoolgirls to work as escorts and perform sex work after school hours.

One sex worker, Mr Inskip said, had told him she and her friend were recruited when 16-year-old schoolgirls in a regional centre by a woman from an illegal brothel. They told him the enforcers included a number of taxi drivers and that the operation was highly organised. Legal solo sex workers in the bush had told him of organised illegal sex workers moving from town to town providing services advertised in local papers. Several of those interviewed told The Courier-Mail the current law that allowed prostitutes to operate provided they worked alone was almost impossible to enforce as any illegal organisation behind them was virtually invisible. Some solo sex workers were acting legitimately when they obtained clients themselves and illegally when they accepted clients offered by syndicated phone and escort services. An illegal operation could change identity simply by replacing SIM cards on mobile phones.

The contradictions in the regulation of prostitution are easy to find. While Queensland's Prostitution Licensing Authority spends its time poring over the wording of newspaper ads submitted by legal brothels, escort agencies – illegal in Queensland – are able to place large display ads in Brisbane's Yellow Pages under the guise of offering "companionship services". Mr Inskip said illegal agencies that advertised in the Yellow Pages did not openly admit to offering sex services, so without using entrapment techniques, police would have difficulties obtaining evidence to close them. And even if they did entrap and charge a sex worker, the escort agency could claim it had arranged a meeting for companionship only. It was not in control of events and any exchange of money after that was strictly between the sex worker and the client.

Mr Inskip said illegal operators had harnessed the internet, posing as clients giving recommendations and reviews of various sex workers and escort services in blogs. Ray Van Haven, a Dutchman and owner of the Oasis legal brothel in Sumner Park, said he paid more than $20,000 a year in licensing fees, company tax, income tax, and WorkCover fees only to see the illegal industry, which pays nothing, operate with impunity. Mr Van Haven said criminals were approaching legal owners with offers that showed the illicit sex industry was being well organised by large-scale operators. He had refused an offer to supply him with dozens of girls from what he believed was an overseas crime organisation. "They could organise as many women as I wanted from whatever age that I wanted from a number of countries that I wanted, at any time," he said. "They're very big operators to the extent you can wonder how fair it is to the legal operators to work in that environment."

Another problem is that a lot of the escort agency sector is organised on a national basis – something that would make efforts by individual state authorities piecemeal. A typical scenario put to us was: a man staying in a Brisbane hotel telephones an escort service number which is then diverted to a receptionist in Sydney. The receptionist calls what otherwise would be a legal sole worker in Brisbane who visits the man's hotel in Brisbane. It appears from the outside to be a legally operating solo sex worker providing an outcall service.

Mr Inskip said interstate-run escort services also had organised groups of workers to visit men in male-dominated parts of rural and regional Queensland such as mining regions. They were organised into motel units so they would appear to be sole traders and their services advertised as such in regional papers – who also believed they were sole traders.

Prostitution researcher and sociologist Professor Jake Najman said he knew of a scam where calls to a Queensland escort service were diverted across the border to Tweed Heads from where a sexual service was organised. These schemes were illegal but the border hop made them difficult to police. The large proportion of ads for Asian sex workers has fuelled concern that some of these are being organised by syndicates, again camouflaged as solo worker services.

Mr Inskip said some of these sex workers appeared to be bona fide Asian students who went to university but also undertook sex work organised for them even before they arrived in Australia.

The Courier Mail 22 January 2007