Thread: Operation China Doll

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'Operation China Doll' brings arrest
A 2-year investigation reveals prostitution at massage parlors, authorities say.
Pedro Ruz Gutierrez
Sentinel Staff Writer

March 31, 2007

Back rubs and body scrubs weren't the only services offered at some area massage parlors authorities say were fronts for prostitution.

Law-enforcement officials on Friday hoped the arrest of an Orange County resident on charges she ran brothels would send a message to illegal massage spas in Central Florida -- and their customers.

Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation agents said the arrest of Li Ping Ding, a Chinese-born naturalized U.S. citizen, culminated a two-year investigation dubbed "Operation China Doll" into an illicit industry that often exploits illegal immigrants.

Speaking as she was led in handcuffs to a sheriff's patrol car, Ding said she had been set up by acquaintances and police. "People are angry at me," she said to reporters before being driven away to the Orange County Jail.

She later was booked on 16 counts of deriving support and proceeds of prostitution, two counts of solicitation to commit prostitution, and one count each of maintaining a place for prostitution and racketeering. Her bail was set at $101,900. If convicted, she could face 30 years in prison on the racketeering charge alone.

Ding, who lives in a Waterford Lakes subdivision, was at her Hang Zhou Spa at 6440 E. Colonial Drive on Friday afternoon before her arrest. She had made arrangements to meet an undercover agent who was posing as a potential buyer of her massage business.

Sgt. Paul Zambouros, a deputy who heads the MBI's vice unit, said for up to $160, patrons at Ding's commercial and residential parlors could get illegal sex acts that ranged from masturbation to intercourse.

Zambouros praised investigators with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Florida Department of Health for discovering most women in the parlors were illegally in the country and operated without massage licenses.

Ding's clientele was steered to her businesses through ads in the Orlando Weekly, Zambouros said.

According to the ads, Ding has operated several parlors under the names Asian Relaxation, Soothing Asian Massage, Long Quan -- Asian Massage, Beijing Spa and The Massage Buffet.

Long Quan, which operated in Altamonte Springs, was the site of prostitution-related arrests by police in 2005 and 2006.

This month, Ding advertised the sale of one of her businesses, which caught vice agents' attention and led to Friday's sting. Investigators say she offered to sell one of her massage parlors to an undercover MBI agent posing as a New York-based buyer. She told him that the business would pay for itself in three months.

"Massage Store for Sale!!! Good location! Great Business!! 5 Rooms -- Everything new! $60K."

A meeting to negotiate the deal with the undercover agent ended with Ding's arrest at her spa about 2:45 p.m. Another unidentified employee of Ding's also was taken into custody by MBI agents at Ding's Beijing Spa at 6500 W. Colonial Drive.

MBI documents say Ding previously leased homes and used them to run massage parlors, which were closed down after complaints from neighbors to authorities.

Zambouros said Ding employs mostly illegal immigrants from China, but some legal immigrants, from Korea and Vietnam, also were involved. He said the women could make up to $500 on good days with tips but lived in servitude because of their immigration status.

At least 15 of them have been arrested on prostitution-related charges in the past two years, and some of them have cooperated or have been deported.

"They are someone's daughters, and they are living in squalor and sometimes sleeping on the floors of back rooms," Zambouros said.

He said the women, some of whom cooperated after their arrests, told agents they had paid as much as $50,000 to be smuggled into the United States through Canada.

Once here, Zambouros said, most began working illegally at retail stores but soon found themselves in the massage-parlor business to pay their debts to smugglers.

"A lot of these females who are working at these Asian massage parlors were smuggled into this country or have come in on visas that have expired," Zambouros said. "They have overstayed, and now to support themselves, a lot of them find themselves working at these massage parlors."

Pedro Ruz Gutierrez can be reached at pruz@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5620.


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I'm fed up with these people coming into our Country, and bringing their corrupt lives with them!

We have enough to contend with, without taking in corrupt foreigners!