First brothel for women goes under

WALDSHUT, Germany -- Europe's women voted with their feet by forcing the continent's first brothel for women to close, police said.

The brothel owner, whom police named only as Clemens K., 31, was arrested in Germany after he resorted to mugging an elderly couple with a toy gun.

"He told us his brothel had gone bust. If they'd operated like a normal brothel and made sure they got the money before the sex, they would have been all right," Peter-Georg Biewald, a police spokesman in Waldshut, southwestern Germany, told Reuters on Friday.

"But they didn't ask for money until afterwards and the women only paid for what they thought the service had been worth."

Clemens ran the brothel with five other male prostitutes in the village of Leibstadt in Switzerland, close to the German border.

"When it opened at the beginning of December, the media celebrated it as Europe's first brothel for women. But I can't imagine he had a lot of visitors," said Biewald.

The brothel was called "Angels" and occupied a Swiss chalet-style house.