Thread: Cops arrest 31 for sex trafficking ring

http://today.reuters.com

Cops arrest 31 for sex trafficking ring
Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:25 PM ET


By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A sex trafficking ring that smuggled Korean women into the United States to work in brothels has been cracked and 31 people arrested, officials said on Wednesday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said 70 women were in custody for questioning to see if they were victims of the ring that trafficked prostitutes between brothels in cities including New York, Washington and Philadelphia.

Prosecutors said recruiters identified Korean women who wanted to work in the United States. Some were given false immigration documents while others were smuggled into the United States through Canada or Mexico.

"By the time the women have been taken into the United States, the women owe the recruiters and other members of the criminal organization a large debt, usually in the tens of thousands of dollars," immigration authorities said in a criminal complaint.

The women were then made to work as prostitutes to pay off their debts and traded between various brothels. The brothel owners and managers kept a large portion of the money paid by customers and credited the rest against the debts.

"The women are in some instances told or led to believe that, if they leave the prostitution business before paying off their debts, they will suffer a range of harms," the complaint said. "The women are sometimes threatened with harm to their families in Korea."

Arrests were made in Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C. following a joint investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/nyreg ... r=homepage

August 16, 2006
31 Arrested in Human-Trafficking Case
By EMILY VASQUEZ
Law enforcement officials announced today the arrest of 31 individuals linked to an international human-trafficking ring operating throughout the Northeast. Officials said they had also taken 67 possible victims of trafficking — all young Korean women — into protective custody. It is believed that the young women were brought to the United States illegally and forced to work as prostitutes in a network of at least 20 brothels.

“This exploitation is not a back-alley business,” said Michael Garcia, United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. “It happens in residential areas of our nation’s capital, it happens in the West 20’s in New York City,” he said.

Many of the brothels, officials said, were fronted by seemingly legitimate businesses, like massage parlors, health spas and acupuncture clinics, including the Crystal Spa on West Avenue in Norwalk, Conn., and Cleveland Park Holistic Health on Connecticut Avenue Northwest in Washington. One brothel was found on West 26th Street and another on 59th Street in Manhattan.

Recruiters who worked for the trafficking ring would go to Korea in search of women who wanted to come to the United States and either supply them with false documents to travel to the country or smuggled them across United States borders with Mexico or Canada, officials said.

Once delivered to a brothel, managers would typically take away their identification and travel documents and threaten to turn them into the authorities if they attempted to leave or to harm their families remaining in Korea, officials said. The women were forced to work to pay off tens of thousands of dollars of debt they had accumulated during their travel from Korea.

In some of the brothels, officials said, there were special rooms or compartments where the women could be hidden in case of a raid by law enforcement on the establishment.

Arrests began Tuesday morning of not only brothel owners and managers, but also middlemen, who worked as drivers, and others who helped illegally remit some of the money the women earned back to Korea, officials said.

The arrests are related to the breakup in March of a brothel in Flushing, Queens, where earlier this year an undercover New York Police Department detective discovered business had flourished under the protection of two veteran police officers who accepted bribes from the brothel owners. Those officers were charged with public corruption offenses and are awaiting prosecution in federal district court in Brooklyn.

Following those arrests, officials obtained a court-authorized wiretap of a cell phone used by Tae Hoon Kim, a Flushing-based middleman and transporter. That wire-tap led to the discovery of a network of Korean-owned brothels.

Officials will interview the 67 women in protective custody to determine if they were indeed victims of human trafficking — in other words that they did not knowingly enter into the prostitution ring. They will work with those women who were to grant them short-term immigration relief. Later, alongside non-governmental organizations, they will assist those women in pursuing legal options for obtaining longer-term status, said Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But, she said, that interview process can be lengthy.

“These are women who have been mentally and physically broken down in every way possible in order to achieve a mental state in which they can no longer fight against their captors or try to escape,” she said. “They are scared of the traffickers — they are also scared of law enforcement. It can take weeks to build enough trust with these victims that they will speak to us.”

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/ ... -headlines

From Thursday's Sun

Massage spa part of wide sex ring
Woodlawn parlor raided, authorities nab international human traffickers


By Matthew Dolan
Sun Reporter

August 16, 2006, 9:55 PM EDT

The Moonlight Spa across from Woodlawn High School advertised massage services alongside its tanning booths. Federal authorities said Wednesday that the suite at the strip mall once offered much, much more.
Inside, authorities allege, had been the local outpost for a prostitution ring that stretched from Rhode Island to Washington, D.C. Prosecutors in New York have charged 31 people, including at least four from Maryland, with using seemingly lawful businesses to house prostitutes imported from Korea, transport them up and down the East Coast and amass millions of dollars from sex services.

Security was so elaborate at the Baltimore County operation that authorities said it had not one, but two hidden compartments to stash prostitutes in case of a police raid.

Court-approved wiretaps on cell phones revealed the location of one secret closet at Moonlight, according to court papers.

But Mark Bastan, acting special agent in charge of the Baltimore office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said his agents didn't immediately know about a second one behind a kitchen cabinet when they stormed the storefront Tuesday afternoon.

"We counted up the number of suitcases and the number of people we had, and we realized we had people missing," Bastan said.

Agents targeted people suspected of being brothel owners and managers, middlemen who worked as transporters and prostitutes. Charges include conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants and to transport women for the purpose of prostitution.

At their homes in Maryland, Kum Ok Lowery, 53; Mi Ja Park, 41, of Montgomery Village and Sun Im An, 44, of Upper Marlboro were all arrested early Tuesday, accused of running brothels, officials said.

During the raid at Moonlight, immigration agents arrested another five people, including two who had overstayed their visas, Bastan said.

"This case is a reminder that large-scale human trafficking occurs every day, right in our own cities and neighborhoods," said Michael J. Garcia, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Neighboring proprietors said Wednesday that men entered the dark-tinted glass door of the Moonlight at all hours. Employees, mostly young Asian women, always entered through a back door.

"Everybody kind of knew what was going on there," said Ron Mariano, whose guitar and music shop is across the parking lot from the spa.

There were few disturbances, although neighbors said local police had visited the spa in the recent past. "They didn't bother us so we didn't say anything," said Iyabo Fagbayi, the owner of Abek's International Food.

According to complaints unsealed in federal court in Manhattan and Brooklyn, the investigation began in May 2005 when a Korean couple who owned and operated a chain of brothels in Queens attempted to bribe an undercover New York City Police Department detective.

Working undercover, the detective began accepting bribes from the couple, according to prosecutors. In March, the couple and two officers accused of accepting bribes were charged.

The government then expanded its investigation and obtained a wiretap on the telephone of Tae Hoon Kim, a Flushing, N.Y., resident accused of being a middleman and transporter of prostitutes. The wiretap led to the discovery of an extensive network of Korean-owned brothels, authorities said.

In some cases, authorities said, the recruiters provided women from Korea with false immigration documents to enable them to enter the United States. In other instances, the women were taken into the custody of handlers in Canada or Mexico and then smuggled into the United States, according to court papers.

Effectively indentured servants, the women were placed by middlemen into the network's brothels, court papers say. The brothel owner or manager frequently took women's identification and travel documents, including passports, so it would be difficult for the women to leave, according to prosecutors.

The women were sometimes threatened or led to believe their families in Korea would be harmed if their debts weren't satisfied, according to authorities.

In Baltimore, activity centered around Moonlight at a strip mall bookended by a temple and a mosque.

Scoping out the business on the 1800 of Woodlawn Drive, immigration agents had already suspected money laundering and prostitution, according to court papers.

Tapping phones, they listened to at least seven conversations involving a woman identified as Mi Sun Hayes earlier this year.

On Feb. 13, Hayes, who authorities allege owned Moonlight, said during a call that she been robbed of cash the night before. She told an unidentified person on the other end of the phone that she thought one of the girls might have stolen the money.

Hayes also said her lawyers told her she could not go to the police because she was employing girls who were in the country illegally, according to the criminal complaint. Hayes was arrested and charged with conspiracy to engage in human trafficking, according to federal authorities in New York.

In March and April, Yong Chong, known as Ra Ra, said in tapped phone conversations that she was working at an unspecified "Oasis," and later at Moonlight.

During several calls, Chong negotiated with an unidentified person to provide her with girls. Criminal records show that Chong was convicted in Queens in 2004 and 2005 for promoting prostitution.

matthew.dolan@baltsun.com

Sun reporter Lynn Anderson contributed to this article.