Owners in for a nasty surprise

A Durban couple, allegedly the owners of a building which housed a brothel in Durban’s Point area, will have to turn themselves in to police as soon as they return from their Mauritian holiday, after a warrant for their arrest was issued on Friday.

The Umhlanga-based doctor and his wife, who are both in their late 50s, are registered as owners of the Inn Town Holiday Lodge, on Rochester Road, where 16 girls, eight of them underage, were rescued on February 16 from forced prostitution.

“They are the owners of the building, so they would have had to know what was going on there,” said Warrant Officer Cyril Freese of the Durban Organised Crime Unit.

Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Vincent Mdunge said investigators searched the couple’s Umhlanga home and the husband’s medical practice, but were told that the couple were in Mauritius.

“The date of their arrival is known to the police, and they will have to hand themselves in as soon as they get back,” he said.

“If they do not do this, then police will find them and they will appear in court.”

At the time, police described the raid as KwaZulu-Natal’s biggest raid against human trafficking, with evidence of almost two years of forced prostitution, drug dealing, and of girls being held against their will.

“Eight of the girls were underage, and were being held ‘in transit’ in the brothel, probably to be sent to other countries as prostitutes or drug mules,” said Mdunge.

The youngest girl was 12 years old, and appeared to be several months pregnant.

During the raid, three men, believed to be drug dealers, and a 59-year-old woman, believed to be the hotel’s manager, were arrested.

Freese said that since the rescue on February 16, nine of the 16 girls had been identified by their parents.

“None of them has returned home yet as they are still detoxing and undergoing counselling,” he said.

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