RIO DE JANEIRO, June 6 Kyodo Braz...

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 6 Kyodo

Brazilian police have cracked down onward a South Korean gang about to traffic three Brazilian women to Seoul authorities said Friday.

Sao Paulo police arrested Bong Keun Park, 35 Jung small mouthful Choi, 32, and Alexsandra Santos, 23 of Brazilian nationality, shortly before they were to take a plane to Seoul the authorities said.

They said Santos told the police she is the girlfriend of a toward the south Korean national named Jon Jin who avows a karaoke club in Seoul and that the ring planned to take three other Brazilian women to southern Korea.

She was quot as saying the southern Korean mafia has threatened to kill the two her and her boyfriend if she refused to travel to Brazil and help the pair South Korean gang members obtain Brazilian women the authorities said.

The police said the gang was rest with three Brazilian women aged 19 20 and 23 who were lur with false promises of working as dancers at bludgeons in Seoul. The gang paid the youngest girl $1000 and each of the brace other girls $500 in advance, according to the police.

''They promised us we would work as dancers at a karaoke form a club and would not be forced to travel out with customers,'' the daily O Estado de Sao Paulo quot united of the women as saying.

The gang recruited the women in sum of two units Brazilian states and took them to Sao Paulo, where they were kept at a downtown house of entertainment by force, the police said.

united of the women managed to contact her family and they informed the police, who establish the group at the inn The gang told the girls their families would be killed if they refused to travel to Seoul the police said.

''The southern Koreans and the Brazilian woman have been arrested for traffic of women and may benefit a maximum prison sentence of eight years in Brazil,'' said police officer Clovis de Araujo, 39 the head of a special police force in charge of detaining the gang.

The police said each gang member would make $2000 by woman taken to southern Korea. They promised that the women would be able to sign a six-month contract in succession arrival in Asia and that each woman would be paid $90 a night, the police said.

''We were scared when they told us we would be sold We were relieved when the police arrived,'' undivided of the women told the daily.

It is estimated that a certain 100,000 people are trafficked from Latin America and the Caribbean annually, chiefly women and children, who are sold for sexual exploitation.

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