Third S’porean added to US ‘worst of worst’ criminal list for coercing women into prostitution
23 women were rescued from the prostitution ring operated by the Singaporean and her husband.
On July 25, 2025, a Singaporean woman, Jing Emtage, 54, was sentenced to two years and two months in prison by the US Department of Homeland Security. She is the third Singaporean to be added to the list of "worst of worst criminal aliens," a designation reserved for the most serious offenders among criminal illegal aliens. Emtage was arrested in May 2023, along with her husband, Gerald Emtage, 49, as part of an investigation that began in 2021.
During their two-year operation, law enforcement shut down nine massage parlours and rescued 23 women who had been forced into prostitution by the couple. Emtage was originally from Singapore and moved to the US in January 2018, where she met her husband and they got married the following year. She had previously run a legitimate massage business in Singapore before the pandemic caused financial losses.
Prosecutors argued that the couple made significant profits from exploiting dozens of women, while there were no records of them paying wages to their victims. At the time of their arrest, the couple was found with over $600,000 in cash. Emtage is currently held at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Northwest processing centre in Washington and is awaiting deportation proceedings.
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