Police detained 222 people, including 209 foreign women working as guest relations officers, in coordinated raids on 12 entertainment centres across Johor in the early hours of 9 August.
The operation, codenamed Op Noda, ran from 2.15am to 9am and involved the Johor contingent police headquarters and district police headquarters, NST reported.
Johor police chief Datuk Comm Ab Rahaman Arsad said the 209 women, aged between 19 and 40, comprised 93 Vietnamese nationals, 87 from Thailand, 11 from Laos, seven from Indonesia, six from Myanmar and five from the Philippines, according to The Star.
Police also detained 13 caretakers of the premises, comprising 10 local men and three foreign men aged between 20 and 53. Preliminary urine screening found 44 of those detained tested positive for drugs, while seven had previous criminal and drug-related cases.
The cases are being investigated under several provisions, including Section 11(2) of the Johor Entertainment and Places of Entertainment Enactment 1998, the Immigration Act 1959/63, including Section 6(1)(c) for not possessing valid travel documents and Section 15(1)(c) for overstaying passes.
Ab Rahaman said the state police would take firm action against entertainment premises found to have breached their licensing conditions, including cancellation of licences. He urged the public to provide information on criminal activities to the Johor police hotline at 019-2792095 or the operations room at 07-2212999.
