POLICE have busted three motels in Mackay operating as illegal brothels after cashed-up mine workers have added to a boom in the city's red-light sex trade. Undercover police caught groups of sex workers working out of the three and four-star motels in a series of raids which lead to three operators being served with warning notices. Mine workers earning an average $100,000 a year regularly commute hundreds of kilometres between the coalfields of the Bowen Basin and Mackay for entertainment – some paying up to $300 an hour for sex. Police, the sex industry and motel owners yesterday said the mining boom had a green light effect on the red-light sex trade. One of the inner-city motel owners, served a warning notice last Friday under the new prostitution legislation, yesterday said he had been unfairly singled out. "Apparently Mackay is a hot spot," said the owner/manager, who asked not to be named. "You'll probably find there are one or two working girls in every motel in town. And, of course, it is because of the mines." Most visited the city's legal brothel, Club 7, but some chose to answer escorts ads in the paper. "That is how the police caught these two girls operating out of my motel," he said. "They rang them using the mobile phone numbers out of the ads in the newspaper. "The rules are you are allowed to have one girl working but as soon as there are two you are breaking the rules. "The police served me a notice saying they can actually confiscate my premises. I am frightened. "The scary part now is when a woman walks in and I shudder whether to ask if she is a prostitute and get a slap in the face or do I put a sign in the office window saying Working Girls Definitely Not Allowed here?" Detective-Sergeant Murray Pearce, of the State Prostitution Enforcement Taskforce, said most illegal operators tended to work in groups out of smaller motels. "When the management become aware prostitution is happening in their hotel or motel it is a legal requirement for them to take all reasonable steps to desist the prostitution from occurring." Queensland Adult Business Association spokesman Nick Inskip said increased demand from the booming mines was luring the illegal sex trade out bush.