5 social escorts go missing after boarding a ship moored off the S’pore coast

Each escort would then receive a diamond as a bonus, which Mr Wong had showed them.

In initial reports, Ms Helen Tan claimed she was invited but had a prior appointment at a race course.

An article four years later revealed that Mr Wong only asked for five of them. Ms Tan was furious to have been snubbed out of what she expected to be a lucrative payday.

She would later call it “the luckiest day of my life”.

Source: The Straits Times via NewspaperSG

Men brought victims onto cargo ship at night

On the afternoon of 20 Aug, a Sunday, Mr Wong hired a motor sampan from the historic Jardine Steps jetty, near Keppel Shipyard.

Mr Awang, the boatman, was paid S$8 an hour to bring the three men and five women to Sentosa for a picnic.

Source: Missing on mewatch

On the return trip, Mr Wong told him to give them a tour of the harbour instead. The request irritated Mr Awang, as harbour tours cost more, but he carried it out.

At around 6pm, Mr Wong changed his plans and told the boatman to drop the women off at Merdeka Bridge.

They protested. Wading onto the muddy shores of the Kallang Basin did not seem like a good idea.

Source: Missing on mewatch

The businessman thus ordered Mr Awang to head back to Jardine Steps. Halfway there, as the sky turned dark, Mr Wong allegedly changed his mind yet again.

He directed Mr Awang to the Eastern Anchorage, off the shore of Marina Bay. Following his instructions, Mr Awang came to a stop alongside an anchored grey-hulled cargo ship.

The eight passengers then boarded, with the escorts laughing and in a good mood. This would be the last time anyone saw the women.

Source: Missing on mewatch

Severed hand belonging to a woman found in nearby waters

Ms Diana Ng’s close friend, Ms Koh Kim Toh, began an urgent search when the five women never turned up again.

Two days after the disappearance, she met Mr Awang, who sailed her to where the ship had been. By then, it was gone.

Source: Missing on mewatch

Unfortunately, Mr Awang did not remember its name or port of registry.

With hundreds of cargo freighters moored in Singapore’s coastal waters that day, identifying the right one with no clues was impossible.

Source: Missing on mewatch

On 26 Aug, a severed human hand was found in the sea off the nearby Keppel Shipyard.

The police determined that the decomposed right hand was that of a young woman with manicured fingernails and traces of nail polish.

It was never determined if the hand belonged to one of the five missing victims. One inspector on the case, Christopher Sng, later said he “firmly believed” that it did.

Source: Missing on mewatch

Missing social escorts suspected to have been sold into sex slavery

In September that year, Interpol told Singapore police of a similar case in Macau.

Three women had gone missing in July that year after dinner with an alleged Japanese man known as “Mr Fukuda”.

Source: The Straits Times via NewspaperSG

Investigators suspected that Mr Fukuda and Mr Wong could be the same person.

The police also learnt that Mr Wong had registered at the Peninsula hotel as ‘Kyokukan Daraka’, using a fake passport.

Theories abounded on what had happened to the missing social escorts. Some suspected that a Hong Kong vice ring had kidnapped the victims and sold them into prostitution in Bombay (now Mumbai).

Source: The Straits Times via NewspaperSG

Other theories included a Japanese criminal syndicate, or the women being sexually exploited in a “floating brothel”.

Yet, after years of investigation, the police were no closer to solving the case.

American captive in North Korea claims he saw missing victim there

In 2005, the case would see a new, unexpected trail emerge. A Japanese TV station was making a special programme on the disappearance of the five women.

The TV crew interviewed Charles Robert Jenkins, an American soldier who deserted into North Korea in 1965. He had been held captive for 39 years before being released in 2002.

Source: US Army via Wikimedia Commons

Mr Jenkins claimed to have seen a picture of Ms Yeng in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang in 1980 or 1981. He remembered her as working at a shop there.

North Korea has a known history of kidnapping citizens from other countries. Even Mr Jenkins’ wife, Hitomi Soga, was a Japanese woman abducted by North Korean agents.

The abductees were used to teach their language and culture to North Korean spies.

Kidnapped actress heard rumours of Malaysians in North Korea

Infamously, South Korean director Shin Sang-ok and his ex-wife, actress Choi Eun-hee, were both kidnapped under the direct order of the dictator Kim Jong Il.

Source: Magnolia Pictures

Kim, a big fan of the ‘Godzilla’ movies, forced them to produce a giant monster film, ‘Pulgasari’, among others.

Source: IMDb

After the remarried couple escaped, Ms Choi alleged hearing about a Malaysian couple in Pyongyang.

The cold case of the five missing escorts saw a rekindled interest in 2017 following the assassination of Kim Jong-nam in Kuala Lumpur. It is widely believed to have been masterminded by North Korea.

Whereabouts of the five missing social escorts remains a mystery

Despite the new theory, the case remains no closer to being solved 48 years later. Mr Jenkins and Ms Choi are seen as reliable, but they are certainly not infallible.

Source: New Nation via NewspaperSG

Little separates the possible sighting of Ms Yeng in North Korea from unsubstantiated claims of one of the women being seen in a floating brothel, as Mdm Yoong once alleged.

Whether the five victims were really sold into prostitution, kidnapped by North Korea, or experienced some other fate, we can only hope that the mystery will be solved one day.

Also read: This day 32 years ago: Thomas Yeo disappeared after meditating in a M’sia forest

This day 32 years ago: Thomas Yeo disappeared after meditating in a M’sia forest

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Featured image adapted from The Straits Times via NewspaperSG and NAS.