Just two days ago, her brother-in-law was jailed for prostitution-related offences.

Yesterday, Ngo Ngoc, 27, who had helped Seng Swee Meng, 42, operate a vice syndicate, was jailed for 18 months.

Seng was jailed for five years on Wednesday after pleading guilty to 15 charges, including two counts of abetting to obtain commercial sex with minors.

Ngo Ngoc, a housewife, had pleaded guilty in January to five of the 13 charges against her.

She had admitted to three counts of harbouring prostitutes, one count of receiving a sex worker at Changi Airport and one count of living in part on earnings of prostitution.

The remaining eight charges for similar offences were taken into consideration during sentencing. Ngo Ngoc, a Singapore permanent resident, sobbed silently as she sat in the dock.

The petite Vietnamese national is married to a Singaporean man working in the Education Ministry. The couple have a son, who is about three years old, and live in an HDB flat in Yishun.

One of Ngo Ngoc's sisters, Ngo Tien, 32, is married to Seng.

Worked together

The trio, together with another of her siblings, an elder brother known only as "Ba", had worked together in the vice syndicate.

Ba's whereabouts are unknown, and Ngo Tien is on the run after she left Singapore for Vietnam last July.

Assistant Public Prosecutor (APP) N.K. Anitha told the court that officers from the Specialised Crime Branch raided a unit at Eunos Mansion at Jalan Eunos on August 20 last year.

They arrested 24 Vietnamese women who were working as hostesses and prostitutes at various pubs in Geylang.

Four of them had been recruited by Ngo Ngoc, Ngo Tien and Seng to work in the sex industry here. The women were between 21 and 39 years old.

These arrests took place 18 days after officers raided a unit at Fu Yuen Court at Lorong 35, Geylang and arrested 30 Vietnamese women, 15 of them prostitutes recruited by Seng and his wife.

In the current case, APP Anitha said one of the four sex workers told Ngo Ngoc shortly after arriving in Singapore last July that poverty drove her to work as a prostitute here.

Ngo Ngoc, who is also known as "Muoi", comforted the 38-year-old woman, saying that "there were many others like (the woman) who had come to Singapore to ply the trade for the same reason."

Defence lawyer Ong Peng Boon, pleading for leniency, said Ngo Ngoc comes from a family of seven children.

He stressed that his client had "acted only out of obligation to her sister and her brother-in-law". Mr Ong said: "Her role in this establishment was dictated and crafted by them."

For her offences, Ngo Ngoc could have been jailed up to five years and fined a maximum of $10,000 for each charge.

This article was first published in The New Paper.