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Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?
What happened
Jorge Flores Rojas, 45, was a notorious sex trafficking operator in Charlotte. Local and federal authorities say Flores' ring brought in hundreds of young women each year to work as prostitutes. Flores, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, picked up vans full of eight to 10 young women each week outside the McDonald's on West Sugar Creek Road near Interstate 85, where other traffickers had brought them. Others, he smuggled in directly from Latin America. Authorities say he brought customers to his apartment off Sharon Amity Road near Eastland Mall, but mostly took the girls to hotels and brothels set up around the city. In November 2007, court documents say, he "sold" at least two teenagers from Mexico to Yaneth Martinez, a D.C. madam, who advertised her services with cards offering "Hair Cuts for Men Only." Martinez worked the girls in the capital city and gave Flores a cut of the profits. A month later, she returned them to him. Their business relationship worked like this for more than a year, federal authorities said.
Response and intervention
"I don't think we really realized how big this was," says Delbert Richburg, assistant special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of Investigations in Charlotte. "We're probably just scratching the surface." In April, Flores pleaded guilty to sex trafficking involving a minor and was sentenced to 24 years, after which he will be deported. He is currently in a federal prison in South Carolina. In July, Martinez pleaded guilty to transporting individuals for prostitution and was sentenced to time served. She will be deported to Honduras. The growth is so extensive that this month ICE stationed a team of agents in Charlotte to focus on human trafficking, smuggling and exploitation. Across the Carolinas, immigrant sex rings have been broken up in Monroe, Durham and Columbia. Martinez, after a falling out with Flores over her own daughter, tipped off a women's center in Washington that her daughter had been kidnapped. The center contacted authorities. On Feb. 7, 2008, ICE agents stormed Flores' apartment in Charlotte. He wasn't there, but authorities arrested him a day later in Myrtle Beach. He had brought some of his victims to South Carolina because they had become "overused" in Charlotte, according to court records. Victims will not be targeted for arrest or deportation, Special Agent Richburg said. Instead they will be offered special visas in exchange for their help prosecuting traffickers. As in the case of one victim, Martinez' own daughter, she is living with a foster family. She is getting a special green card for abused or abandoned children.