SINGAPORE - Ang Boon Seng, the man who ran nine pubs and masterminded one of Singapore's largest prostitution rings, was sentenced to 35 months behind bars on Monday.

The 40-year-old made a total profit of at least $1.08 million over the course of his business over four years, 40 per cent of which came from prostitution earnings. The monthly profits ranged between $27,000 and $60,000.

Ang, who had admitted to 43 vice-related charges and seven brought by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), was fined a total of $98,000 on the MOM charges of demanding money from the Filipino women as a condition of their employment.

District Judge Lim Keng Yeow also imposed a $3,600 disgorgement payment on Ang.

Ang will start his sentence on Dec 22 after his Filipino wife, Anne Asuncion Ylarde, 31, who was given 10 weeks' jail on Monday, completes her sentence for bringing in Filipinas to work in the flesh trade.

She would frequently travel to the Philippines to look for women interested in earning money to come to Singapore as "entertainment performers".

To dupe the authorities, she would sometimes pretend to be the women's sisters and fly back to Singapore with them.

Ang came to know Ylarde in 2003 and married her six years later. They have six children aged two months to 13 years old, three of whom are from Ang's previous marriage.

The court heard that Ang started Tokyo Drift at Orchard Plaza in June 2009, and within four years, opened a total of nine pubs.

Ang's prostitution ring was highly organised, with monitoring cameras and "smoke rooms" that could emit smoke when clients and the prostitutes wanted to get intimate.

In passing sentence, Judge Lim said Ang played a pivotal role in this sophisticated syndicate that operated transnationally.

He said Ang also benefited substantially from running this illegal enterprise, and took elaborate measures to evade detection.

Ang had 189 charges taken into consideration while his wife had five.