Prosecutors in the central city Monday approved the investigation based on assessment that prima facie evidence exists to proceed further with the case.

Jiang Deng Jun, 30, Zhang Hui Min, 38, Fang Jun Jie, 33, Dai Hong Hai, 22, Liu Xiao Wei, 30 and their Vietnamese interpreter Sam Thi Sen, 24, were arrested September 16 after a 15-year-old girl accused them of making her have sex and livestreaming it on Chinese social media.

This had been done since March, local media reports said.

Suspect Zhang Hui Min, 38, the mastermind of the Chinese group
that filmed and broadcast porn with Vietnamese minors in Da Nang City.
Photo courtesy of the police.

The group also recruited women on Facebook to be filmed performing sexual acts, promising up to VND1 million ($43) for a six-hour long footage or VND1.7 million ($73) for a nine-hour long footage. These pornographic videos were then broadcast for viewers who paid for them.

"What the suspects did was very condemnable. Da Nang is a city for tourism and a city worth living in, not some scary places, so such criminal behavior as the suspects have engaged in is unacceptable," said Huynh Duc Tho, Chairman of the Da Nang People’s Committee.

Under Vietnamese law, sex with people under 16 is considered statutory rape, punishable in extreme cases with death.