13-year-old lured into sex trade

CHON BURI: A young female suspect has been nabbed by police after she allegedly procured a 13-year-old girl to have sex with an elderly Japanese man in Pattaya resort town.

Her arrest adds to a growing concern that the age of suspects in sex crimes is getting lower.

At the age of 20, Phloiphan Mueangdit allegedly runs a sex trade, and procured the victim for the Japanese man, himself caught two days earlier at his condominium on Jomtien beach in Chon Buri’s Bang Lamung district.

Ms Phloiphan was detained after she was found yesterday by officers at a food shop in Soi Map Yai Lia 31 in the district.

She was accused of luring an underage girl for a sex service, an act that will also implicate her in a human trafficking charge, according to investigators led by Pattaya police chief Pol Col Aphichai Kropphet.

An initial investigation found another Thai male was also involved in the wrongdoing, police said.

Police are making further probes so as to bring this male suspect to justice.

On Monday, they nabbed Hiroyuki Nakashima at his room after finding the 71-year-old allegedly contacted Ms Phloiphan to send him an underage girl.

Among items confiscated from his room were pornographic magazines, sex toys and a camera secretly installed on the ceiling. It is believed this was set up to record him having sex with the girl, police said.

Earlier in June this year, a 17-yearold girl was arrested on a charge of providing a 14-year-old-girl to have sex with an Indian tourist in Pattaya while a teenage boy allegedly procured senior high-school students for six customers in Nakhon Sawan.

In August, police nabbed a 19-yearold female for allegedly procuring a 15-year-old girl to provide sex services for a drug network in the northeastern province of Roi Et.