GARDAÍ IN Cork are to prepare a file for the Director of Public Prosecutions after last night releasing without charge a woman arrested for questioning about organising prostitution in the city.
Detectives arrested the woman, who is in her 40s and from north Cork, at about 5.30pm on Tuesday at a premises on the North Mall from where she is believed to have operated a brothel for the past number of weeks.
The woman was brought to Gurranabraher Garda station for questioning, before being released late yesterday.
Gardaí had earlier called to an apartment on the North Mall where they had spoken informally with an Asian woman. Following the arrest of the Cork woman in the afternoon, they carried out another raid on a house in Rochestown on the city's south side.
Detectives seized up to 10 mobile phones, computer equipment and about €10,000 in cash, and believe that the woman used the internet to advertise the brothel and then arranged appointments with prostitutes through text messages.
The Garda operation is one of a number aimed at clamping down on prostitution in Cork. It is not related to Operation Boulder last year when gardaí raided a number of premises and arrested three men and three women and seized a substantial quantity of cash.