Iranian police have detained 14 people in separate raids on two brothels in Tehran and Isfahan, press reports said Sunday.
Following a police surveillance operation in the Iranian capital, the Entekhab paper said four women and three men - including a husband-and-wife pimp team - were arrested, it was said.
The report added the male operator of the establishment, a 38-year-old taxi driver named Mahmud, was handed an eight year prison term after it emerged he had cruised the streets of the capital "promising a better life" for young runaway girls.
The report did not say whether his wife, identified as Jamileh, had been sentenced, but quoted her as saying she embarked on a career as a pimp because of financial problems. "Nobody noticed us since we were a married couple," she was quoted as saying.
Police, in the meantime, arrested five men and two women and seized an undisclosed quantity of narcotics in a raid on a "corruption house" in the central city of Isfahan, the Jam-e-Jam newspaper reported. (Albawaba.com)