The Gardai and the RUC are expected to exchange information about the murder of two Chinese women, one in Belfast earlier this week and another in Dublin in June last year.
Both women, who were pregnant, were strangled. They each worked in the fast-food business, were unmarried and aged in their late 20s. In both cases there was no sexual assault, racial or robbery motive. There was no sign of a break-in at their homes, and it is suspected both women appeared to know the person who murdered them. They were fully clothed when found.
It was not clear yesterday what communication might have taken place between detectives involved in the investigations.
However, a senior garda involved in the investigation into the murder of Ms Mandy Wong (28), who was found strangled in a house used by Chinese restaurant workers in Walkinstown on June 11th last year, confirmed they were aware of the similarities between her murder and than of Ms Candy Ho, who was found murdered in a house in east Belfast on Tuesday afternoon.
Nobody has been made amenable for the murder of Ms Wong, who was found face down in a bath in a rented house which she shared with a number of other Chinese restaurant employees at Bunting Road.
Gardai questioned large numbers of Chinese nationals but were unable to obtain enough information to proceed with a charge.
A member of the Metropolitan Police Force's Chinese Unit travelled to Dublin to help the Garda investigation.
Ms Ho was four months pregnant and was last seen when she left the Dragon Inn restaurant in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, after work last Sunday night. She returned to the rented house she lived in at Isoline Street, in east Belfast.
Neighbours reported hearing shouting in the street in the early hours.
Ms Ho was described as a quiet, pleasant woman who had arrived in Northern Ireland in 1989 with her parents, both of whom subsequently died. She was probably killed on Monday, her 29th birthday.
According to a Garda source, the similarities in the murders might stem from the fact that the women became victims of some form of social exclusion within their communities because of their pregnancies.
It is understood the Chinese community specialist from the Metropolitan Police told gardai that his unit had encountered similar deaths in London where women had been the subject of violence because they had become pregnant against the social conduct of their community.