Dubai: Three women visitors contended before a court that they were not prostitutes and that they worked as masseuses in a flat that was being run as a spa at Dubai International City.

Dubai Police’s operations room received a call about a theft incident in a flat that was believed to be a massage spa at the Emirati Cluster at International City in October.

A police patrol team was dispatched to the location and it was discovered that the three women visitors — two Albanians and a Bulgarian — had been working as prostitutes and not as masseuses in the spa at the flat.

An Albanian man was said to have called up the police, according to records, and informed them that two Emirati men had robbed his Dh1,500 and another Dh1,800 that belonged to one of the Albanian women.

Records showed that the Albanian man and the three women were taken to the police station for further investigation.

Prosecutors accused the three women of working in prostitution, while the Albanian man was accused of running the flat as a brothel.

The Emiratis were accused of robbing the Albanian man’s money and Dh1,800 from one of the Albanian women.

Prosecutors also accused one of the Emiratis, aged 20, of having consensual sex with one of the Albanian women.

“We are not prostitutes. We are not sex workers but we worked in massage,” one of the Albanian women told the Dubai Court of First Instance.

The Bulgarian woman contended that she was a masseuse and not a prostitute.

The Albanian man told the presiding judge that he ran the flat as a massage spa and not a brothel.

The Emirati men refuted the theft accusation. The 20-year-old suspect also denied having had consensual sex with one of the women.

A police lieutenant told prosecutors that primary interrogations revealed that the flat was being run as a brothel and not a spa.

“Following the theft complaint, we raided the flat on the fourth floor and it turned out to have been furnished and equipped as a brothel. The Albanian man was the one running it. Upon questioning the women about what had happened, they claimed that the Emiratis visited the flat and the 20-year-old suspect had sex with one of them. Soon after that, the other two Emiratis brandished white weapons and robbed them before they ran away, the women alleged. The Emirati duo were apprehended shortly after and confessed that they had committed the theft,” the lieutenant testified to prosecutors.

The trial continues.