Two Hong Kong men have been sentenced to 10 years' jail in Vietnam for their part in the country's biggest racket smuggling women to prostitution rings.
Fung Wai-keung, Yuen Hok-yan and three Vietnamese accomplices received the highest available punishment on charges of 'prostitution procurement' after sending dozens of young women to brothels in Macau.
Jurors told the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court the gang's activities 'seriously violated social order and virtue', court officials said.
The pair, both aged 35, are being held in Ho Chi Minh City's maximum security Chi Hoa prison and have 15 days to file an appeal.
British diplomats were not informed of the trial and are expected to lodge a complaint and applications to visit the pair, last seen by a British official in December.
Fung and Yuen, formerly of Macau's Skynight Dance Hall, worked for a string of brothels in Vietnam.
They successfully smuggled an estimated 80 Vietnamese hostesses to the enclave as 'tourists', police said after an investigation in which local detectives travelled to Macau undercover.
