The Taiwanese were checking closely the body of each woman, with help of the Vietnamese broker and the translator, when the police busted in.
According to initial investigations, Phung Quang Quang, 31, a city resident, has over the past six years successfully brokered more than 100 marriages for Taiwanese and South Korean men with Vietnamese women.
Quang brought the girls from poor families in the Mekong Delta, and made them wait in Ho Chi Minh City to be paraded.
He reportedly earns around VND10 million (US$513) every month for gathering the girls and parading them for Korean and Taiwanese men.
His sister worked as the translator for the men.
All the Vietnamese and Taiwanese caught in the latest raid were taken to the nearby police station.
This is the second illegal marriage brokerage busted in a week in the city. The earlier one was on August 27 when 17 Vietnamese girls were paraded in front of a Korean groom-to-be.
Over the last two decades, poverty has driven thousands of women from poor families, especially the Mekong Delta, to marry older men, mainly from South Korea and Taiwan, despite language and cultural barriers.
Many of them are alienated and mistreated.
Statistics from the South Korean Consulate General in HCMC show that around 27,500 Vietnamese women had been granted marriage visas by 2008 and around 8,000 such visas were granted in 2009 alone.
This means around 35,500 Vietnamese women had migrated to South Korea after marriage by the end of 2009.
Most of these marriages were arranged by illegal brokers.
Police in Ho Chi Minh City Sunday arrested a man who allegedly threatened to burn himself if his family didn’t give him money to buy drugs.
