OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 9.00am.
THE Assets Forfeiture Unit threatened over the weekend to clamp down on “gentlemen’s clubs” across the country, if they don’t clean up their act.
The warning follows a raid on a high-class Gauteng brothel, The Ranch, which has been provisionally attached. It is now being managed by a curator, who is tasked with maintaining its value by conducting the legal side of its business, The Star reports. According to unit head Willie Hofmeyr this includes running the bar and maybe “continuing the striptease shows”.
Forty-four foreign women from Zambia, Bulgaria, Russia, Thailand, the Czech Republic and Romania, aged between 20 and 35 were arrested during Wednesday’s raid.
The Ranch has managed to become one of Gauteng’s best-known tourist attractions, its name recognisable even to business travellers from abroad.
Andrew Phillips, its owner, said the brothel has attracted some 150000 people over the last ten years.
According to the paper, Hofmeyr said on Sunday that the unit has been observing similar “upper class brothels” throughout the country and will soon be clamping down on them.
Prostitution is still illegal in South Africa.