Singapore salon owner split profits with unlicensed masseuse, jailed 12 days

SINGAPORE: A 73-year-old business owner who ran two beauty salons in a shopping centre secretly allowed unlicensed employees to provide massage services, splitting the earnings equally with them.

The owner operated salons on the first and third floors of the shopping centre, offering beauty and personal care services alongside wholesale beauty products.

According to Shin Min Daily News, she hired a 41-year-old Chinese woman as a beautician for a monthly salary of $2,000. The two agreed that the employee would privately offer massages at the salon, charging customers $30 for every 30-minute session. They would then split the proceeds 50-50.

However, neither the salon nor the employee had the required licence to provide massage services, according to the authorities.

Undercover operation 

To catch the crime, a group of undercover police officers arrived at the shop to conduct an enforcement operation. The unlicensed employee offered a massage service to one of the officers. Other officers who waited outside then entered the shop to conduct a surprise operation. 

It was discovered that the business owner also employed a 58-year-old Chinese woman to provide facial treatments for their other shop. Another group of undercover police went to the third-floor shop for an operation and exposed the illegal activity on the spot. 

With this crime, the business owner now faces three charges under the Massage Establishments Act and admitted to two of them. The remaining charges will be considered by the judge. The owner was eventually sentenced to 12 days’ imprisonment. 

In a separate case, a man stole 10 donation boxes from a coffeeshop after an employee left them outside the store. He later used more than $10,000 of the stolen money to pay off his drug debts, earning him a prison sentence of four months and four weeks.

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