A fireman turned quality-control worker, who imprisoned six young women in his basement for almost two years, treating them as sex slaves and killing two of them, has been detained in Henan, mainland media reported yesterday.
The women's plight only came to light when one of them escaped while being taken to work as a prostitute by the man after he ran into financial difficulties.
Li Hao , 34, bought a cheap, shabby and deserted house of around 20 square metres, with a cellar, in suburban Luoyang , four years ago, the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis News reported.
He spent nearly a year secretly digging and widening the cellar in the evenings and managed to create two rooms roughly four metres underground, the report said.
Li then went to local nightclubs and karaoke lounges, and lured six hostesses into going to the house with him for paid sex, before locking them up and forcing them to have sex with him in the cellar.
To warn the others what might happen if they tried to escape, Li killed one of the women who was most vocal in her complaints. He buried her in a corner of the room where the others lived.
Police investigating the case were surprised to discover that two of the women had constantly quarrelled and scuffled for Li's favour, the report said. To end the dispute, Li killed one of the women involved about a year ago and buried her in another corner of the room.