Police in the raid yesterday detained the Vietnamese couple who were organising the business from a house in Ho Chi Minh City and sent the women back to their home towns, mostly in the poor Mekong Delta region.

International marriages are legal in communist Vietnam, but the match-making rings - where the women are typically paraded before men, sometimes holding signs with numbers, for selection --are not, and the phenomenon has stirred anger in Vietnam.

Police said they would fine the operators, Sen Cam Diu, 44, and his 37-year-old wife Huynh Thi Thu Thuy, who were running the business from a Tan Binh district house, said the state-controlled Thanh Nien newspaper.

Vietnam has become a popular destination for bachelors from South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere searching for a spouse, often on week-long marriage tours that include medical checkups, visa procedures and speedy honeymoons.

The marriage market has been fuelled by a traditional preference for sons in parts of Asia, a trend exacerbated by sex-screening technology for pregnant women, with has left proportionally more bachelors fighting over fewer women.

In South Korea, thousands of agencies now offer marriage tours to China, Vietnam and other Asian countries, often subsidised by rural authorities battling declining populations.

A year ago Vietnam summoned South Korea's press attache amid angry protests from women's groups after a newspaper in Seoul printed a photo of a line-up of Vietnamese would-be brides kneeling before a Korean suitor.

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