The data
Every case on SlaveryMap, drawn from public sources and shown with its location deliberately generalized to protect survivors.
631 of 1,631 cite a source · Updated
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United States US
Intercepted phone calls and the discovery of police bribes led to the demise of this trafficking ring. A wiretap of a cell phone used by Tae Hoon Kim, a Flushing-based middleman and transported, led to the discovery of the Korean owned brothels. Approximately 67 Korean women were taken into custody to be questioned on whether or not they knew they were being forced into prostitution.
United States US
Intercepted phone calls and the discovery of police bribes led to the demise of this trafficking ring. A wiretap of a cell phone used by Tae Hoon Kim, a Flushing-based middleman and transported, led to the discovery of the Korean owned brothels. Approximately 67 Korean women were taken into custody to be questioned on whether or not they knew they were being forced into prostitution.
United States US
The Columbus Police and Franklin County sheriff's deputies executed a search warrant inside the massage parlor. According to Franklin Co. Chief Deputy, the business was a front for organized prostitution. They found bags of condoms and $15,000 in cash, wrapped in aluminum foil.
United States US
Four women--Chae Sun Leonard, Kim Freeman, Sayjai Wilson and Han Son Yi--The sources say they placed ads in local papers. Customers paid $60 at the front door and once inside, they could shell out hundreds more for sex. They say rank-and-file workers, like Atchariya Poosara and Rayvadee Koumphkand, were flown in from locations around the country. Although sources say they came willingly, they were locked inside the businesses for weeks at a time, generating revenue and promoting illegal activity. Detectives are now working to find yet another woman believed to have played a critical role in financing the operation. They hope her arrest will shut this enterprise down for good. were arrested in the bust of two massage parlors--the Oasis Health Club is in another report, this report is on the bust of Jade Clinic. The women face charges of prostitution soliciting and promoting prostitution.
United States US
Nine people worked to traffic Eastern European women to work as exotic dancers in Detroit-area strip clubs. Michail Aronov is believed to be the leader of the operation. The group used the business Beauty Search, Inc. as a cover to recruit women. The victims were then smuggled into the U.S. and forced to work as dancers in the clubs. The business partners referred to their plan for intimidation as “The System.” This involved taking the victims’ passports, imposing debts and monetary penalties, enforcing strict rules, and physical and verbal violence and threats. They also threatened to expose the victims as illegal immigrants. An escaped victim’s car was firebombed and used as a threat to others as the consequences of escape.
United States US
Gray was booked on suspicion of numerous sex-related charges, including sexual assault, kidnapping, 80 counts of receiving the earnings of a prostitute, 80 counts of pandering and 42 counts of operating a house of prostitution. Butler was booked on suspicion of child prostitution, kidnapping, 25 counts of receiving the earnings of a prostitute and 50 counts of pandering.
United States US
Tamera "Danny" Flory, 40, was indicted on one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity and 142 counts of promoting prostitution. This is the largest indictment involving prostitution in Franklin County, covering a period of seven years and five business entities.
United States US
Wan Yo Kang, 37, also known as "Hannah," was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on 11 felony counts of traveling across state lines to promote or manage prostitution activity in February 2005, enticing women to travel interstate to engage in prostitution and harboring two immigrants here illegally at her business, 350 Ward Ave., suite 115.
United States US
Maximino "Chimino" Mondragon and 8 other traffickers worked with Walter Alexander Corea and his son Kerin Silva to smuggle over 120 women, mostly from Central America, into the Houston area and force them to work in brothels. Lorenza Reyes-Nunez, aka "La Comadre," was involved in the trafficking and forced abortions upon women who became pregnant. The others involved include Maximino Mondragon's brother Oscar Mondragon, half brother Victor Omar Lopez and the wives or ex-wives of the Mondragon brothers, Olga Mondragon and Maria Fuentes. They are from El Salvador and Honduras.
United States US
Six men were accused in a federal indictment unsealed Thursday of forcing teenage girls as young as 15 to work as prostitutes, taking them to several states and Bermuda. The charges against Darryl Tavares, 24, of Revere, and two Boston men, Shaun Leoney, 26, and Ruben Porcher, 29, include sex trafficking of children and conspiracy to transport minors across state lines for prostitution. Trueheart Peeples, 30, of Portland, Maine; Eddie Jones, 25, of Boston; and Aaron Brooks, 23, of Quincy are charged with conspiracy to transport minors across state lines for prostitution and other crimes. Prosecutors say the Boston-based group operated from 2001 to 2005 in Massachusetts, Maine, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Florida and Pennsylvania. One of the girls was 15 when Porcher took her to Bermuda for prostitution, according to the indictment. The indictment alleges some members of the group had ties to a network of sex traffickers and met with them in New York City in May 2005 for a "toss-up" event, where pimps trade prostitutes. Leoney and Brooks are accused of driving a teenager to Orlando, Fla., on Memorial Day weekend of 2005 for prostitution activity sponsored by Hoodlum Entertainment, a company owned by two convicted sex traffickers. The indictment alleges that that girl, who was 17, also had worked for Jones and Tavares, and was assaulted at different times when she angered the two men. In April 2005, the indictment alleges, when Tavares believed she had given some of her prostitution earnings to Jones, Tavares and an associate assaulted her. Tavares allegedly instructed the associate to rape her with a hair brush. In early May, she began working for Jones, who kicked in her teeth for talking on her "work" cell phone with a man who was not a prostitution client, according to the indictment. After he disfigured her mouth, the indictment said, Jones "gave" her back to Tavares.
United States US
With the arrest of two NYPD officers accused of accepting payoffs in cash, drinks, and prostitution services in exchange for raiding competing brothels, authorities are focusing on the extent of the brothel problem in Queens. Last week, the F.B.I., the police, the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, and Immigration and Customs agents announced the arrests of NYPD officers, Jerry Svoronos, and Dennis Kim who were assigned to the 109th Precinct, on charges of taking payoffs, both monetary and in trade, to allow the Asian brothel to flourish and protect the owners from competition. Officers Dennis Kim and Jerry Svoronos were arrested along with alleged brothel operators Gina Kim and Geeho Chae following a 10-month investigation. According to U.S. Assistant Attorney Steven H. Breslow, $800,000 in cash was found in the search of the homes and cars of Kim and Chae. On June 20, 2008, a judge delayed the sentencing of Kim after prosecutors dropped new allegations of police corruption in a Queens precinct. Ex-NYPD Officer Dennis Kim and his partner admitted accepting cash and sexual favors from a pimp in return for protecting a brothel in Flushing. Now, the churchgoing Kim could face significantly more jail time because of claims from an informant that he and other cops in the 109th Precinct planted drugs on suspects and stole cash during gambling raids.
United States US
The leaders of the prostitution ring, Martin Carbajal-Servin and Estella Aguilar-Ortiz, a husband and wife were living inside the United States illegally. They recruited a young woman from Mexico using the promise of a legitimate job in Myrtle Beach. They then forced her into prostitution and threatened to kill her if she did not comply.
United States US
Seven defendants pled guilty to forced labor and obstruction of justice charged. The Kang's received four counts of knowingly and intentionally holding their Jane Doe's as well as four counts of aggravated sexual abuse. A Federal Air Marshal and a Dept. of Homeland Security agent were charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice for attempting to force one of the victims to get on a flight to South Korea to keep her from testifying against the couple.
United States US
Agni Lisa Brown (a.k.a. “Agni Lisa Graham,” “Michelle,” and “Lisa”) and her daughter Maria Antoinetta Mourizaki (a.k.a. “Tonia”) ran a brothel located in Springfield, Virginia between the years of 1997 and 2005. The brothel was open 6 days a week, from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. The prostitutes were often illegal immigrants in the United States, some of whom had been trafficked into the country by human traffickers. Information on the traffickers is unknown since Brown and Mourizaki were uncooperative and did not divulge this information. The women were trafficked from multiple areas, including but not limited to Mexico and Thailand. Brown and Mourizaki hired women around the ages of 18-25, convinced them to engage in illegal prostitution, transported them over state boundaries, and housed many of them in the brothel. They had a diverse work force that included Asian, Hispanic, and American women. The exact number of women who worked in the brothel during its time of operation is unknown, but it is believed that a small number of women worked there for a long time. In the case of at least one of the trafficked victims, the woman paid a large sum to enter the United States; when she was sold to Brown, Brown assumed her debt, and so the women fell into a situation of debt bondage. Agni Lisa Brown split the money earned from the brothel into five bank accounts at Burke and Herbert Bank and 5 bank accounts at Suntrust Bank. She used that money to pay for the rent of the brothel from 2000-2005, to pay for the utilities and maintenance of the brothel from 2000-2005, and to pay for newspaper advertisements in both the “Adult Employment” and “Adult Services” sections of the Washington City Paper from January 2002-March 2005. Brown also laundered money from the brothel. During the time the brothel was open, she deposited $731,432 into bank accounts, purchased $633,504 in properties and cars, and kept $168,900 in her home.
United States US
This international sex trafficking syndicate lured a young college student, You Mi, from her home in South Korea February 2003. She was promised a well paying hostess position at a restaurant so that she could pay off her $40,000 shopping debt back home. Instead, the traffickers took her to an illicit massage parlor in LA, where she was manipulated and used to pay off her $20,000 trafficking debt. She left the Massage parlor in July 2003 $0 richer and headed on a bus for San Francisco. She found that since she was an illegal immigrant, the only available work for her that was lucrative enough to pay off her debt was sex work. She wondered into the Sun Spa, where she was immediately handed off to the "masseuse" with the most seniority. For the next four months she endured a life that she had never imagined back in Korea. The Tenderloin is where the bulk of San Francisco's 90 illicit massage parlors are concentrated, identifiable by double metal security doors, surveillance cameras and windows that are blocked out with aluminum foil, plastic garbage bags or paint. She'd spend her waking hours at Sun Spa, having sex with more than a dozen men a day, six days a week, and scurrying into secret hideaways during police raids. Her share of the rent on her apartment was $300 per week. You Mi would also have to pay $50 a day for food, a $40 weekly tip to the cook, plus a $70 weekly tip to the Sun Spa manager. She also had to pay for her wardrobe, $100 per bikini top or bottom. Her tips from customers were typically $100. See Operation Gilded Cage post for more details about trafficker.
United States US
In total, 10 people were charged with violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), for counts of conspiracy to commit forced labor, forced labor, alien smuggling, and harboring illegal aliens. The leader, Medrano, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit forced labor, eight counts of forced labor, one count of alien smuggling, and eight counts of harboring illegal aliens. The bars owned by Medrano where the victims worked are: El Paisano Bar and Nightclub at 509 22nd St. Union City, El Puerto del la Union I at 6710 Bergenline Ave. Guttenberg, and El Puerto de la Union II at 3806 Bergenline Ave. Union City. Lourdes Rosales Martinez, Zenia Zunilda Martinez, and Nancy Floridalma Rosales Martinez recruited the victims in Honduras, and were charged with counts of conspiracy, forced labor, alien smuggling, and harboring illegal aliens. Jose Arnaldo Isuala-Meza and Elsa Consuelo Isuala-Meza smuggled the victims to the US, and were charged with conspiracy, alien smuggling, and harboring illegal aliens. Noris Elvira Rosales Martinez, Ana Luz Rosales Martinez, Jose Dimas Magana, and Rosalba Ortiz were charged with conspiracy, forced labor, alien smuggling, and harboring illegal aliens.
United States US
Fricman Alexander Ramirez (24) Carlos Castillo Rodriguez (37) German Garcia (43) Maria Adelfa Letrado (57) (madam of the ring) Aztlan Jaimes Santana Rolando Hernandez *both Santana and Hernandez told the judge in their hearing that they did not understand that their actions were wrong. The judge said that he could possibly have understood this if they had only been in America for a couple of months. They had been here over 7 years.
United States US
Prostitution ring busted By Sara Jean Green Seattle Times Eastside bureau Chinese army deserters, frequent-flier sex workers, massage-parlor madams and even a customer with diplomatic immunity were among the players swept up in a Bellevue prostitution bust, which could lead officials to similar rings in cities across the country. Bellevue police released details of the prostitution investigation yesterday, more than three months after the first of two Bellevue massage parlors was raided. Nine people — three men and six women — were arrested on suspicion of prostitution, money laundering and forgery. The investigation by Eastside detectives and federal agents was kept quiet until now to give officials time to investigate connections with other cities, said Bellevue police spokesman Michael Chiu. In December, Bellevue police and a host of state and federal agencies began receiving phone calls and letters from legitimate massage therapists who complained of strangers coming to them and requesting sex acts in exchange for generous "tips," Chiu said. The complaints prompted detectives with the Eastside Narcotics Task Force and agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to launch an undercover investigation. Two businesses — Dragon Springs, at 13251 N.E. 20th St., and Heaven & Earth Massage, at 10224 N.E. 10th St. — were put under surveillance and police followed the business operators to their homes, Chiu said. After a three-week undercover investigation, detectives raided Dragon Springs on March 11, arresting two female workers, both illegal immigrants from mainland China, along with the owner and madam, Chiu said. Six weeks after the Dragon Springs bust, Eastside detectives raided Heaven & Earth Massage on April 22 and arrested five people, including two men who apparently had deserted China's People's Liberation Army, Chiu said. So far, one man, the 35-year-old owner of Heaven & Earth Massage, has been deported to China, said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Seattle. Immigration proceedings are under way against a 33-year-old Portland man and a 44-year-old Bellevue woman, but Winchell declined to comment on the status of their cases, except to say both have "bonded out" of custody. Except for two women who were arrested and released, the other people who were arrested were booked into the King County Jail and later posted bail. Two of the nine people arrested are U.S. citizens, Chiu said. Three women were arrested on suspicion of prostitution, a misdemeanor charge; the others could face multiple felony charges, including permitting prostitution, promoting prostitution, money laundering and forgery, he said. No charges have yet been filed. Police not only raided the businesses but searched the main players' homes and seized bank accounts, netting close to $90,000, Chiu said. Expensive cars and boats, thousands of dollars in cash, and so-called "little black books" containing phone numbers of contacts around the country were also seized, he said. Officers also found evidence that the people in charge wired significant amounts of money overseas, Chiu said. In both cases, detectives discovered that sex workers were flown to Seattle and immediately shuttled to the massage parlors; the women would perform sex work for two or three weeks before flying to a new location, Chiu said. The women, who had to pay their own airfare, weren't allowed to leave the parlors and, at Dragon Springs, they were even locked in, Chiu said. Both parlors operated in the same way: When a customer arrived, the customer would pay a $60 massage fee to the "house" and then "tip" the female worker — usually between $40 and $100 — in exchange for sex acts, Chiu said. Immigration officials are still trying to determine how a number of the people arrested arrived in the U.S. in the first place, said Winchell, the ICE special agent. "Human trafficking in the sex trade is alive and vibrant, particularly in the Northwest," Winchell said. Investigators don't believe the female workers busted in Bellevue were sex slaves. Their participation in the sex ring was more akin to "voluntary indentured servitude," he said. As for the men who frequented Dragon Springs and Heaven & Earth Massage, Chiu said they're not off the hook for their conduct. That is, he said, with one exception: Police don't have authority to arrest one man, who has diplomatic immunity. Chiu didn't know what country the man is from. "The customers of these massage parlors might possibly be contacted by police later on — they should be looking over their shoulders," Chiu said. http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040618&slug=prostitution18e
United States US
120 women were arrested....and there were 127 cases. Only 24 of the 120 women identified themselves to police as full-time Kentucky residents. Defendants in 65 of the 127 cases gave police out of state addresses suggesting that the women are perhaps being moved by managers and owners. Details about their intervention has not been released of the safety of the victims.
United States US
Arlan Kaufman, 69, and his wife Linda Kaufman, 62, for over 24 years have operated the Kaufman house in Newton, Kansas. The house was a home for mentally ill patients. Arlan, a licensed social worker, and Linda, a registered nurse, routinely forced and coerced his patients to engage in nude “therapy” sessions. Arlan documented these sessions capturing himself directing the victims to perform sexually explicit acts in front of other patients. In some of the tapes Arlan can be seen sexually assaulting victims. Victims would constantly be forced to do nude labor, where they would tear down a barn, repair barbed wire fences and unload cement bricks from a pickup. The Kaufmans controlled virtually every aspect of the lives of the residents, determining which rooms they would sleep in, what furniture they would be allowed to have, when they would eat, what recreational activities they could engage in, when they could be downstairs and who could enter and leave the house. A “climate of fear” was present with the patients preventing them from contacting friends and family because afraid of consequence.
United States US
His name is Angel "Skinny" Batista, he was forty years old at the time of his arrest. He is from the Dominican Republic, speaks no English, and was found guilty on charges of murder and promoting prostitution after he killed a customer in his brothel. He used rotating girls, and advertised with business cards in spanish, placed in cash checking stores and restaurants.
United States US
Domingo Gonzalez-Garcia, Evodio Gonzalez-Garcia, and Oscar Romero Gonzalez smuggled Domingo’s wife from Mexico to the US in order to force her to engage in prostitution in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
United States US
In May 2005, Guillermo Romero-Flores and Guadalupe Ventura were convicted of two counts of harboring aliens and two counts of harboring aliens for purposes of prostitution. Ventura was also convicted of bringing in an alien for financial gain and transporting an alien for purposes of prostitution. Romero-Flores was sentenced to 27 months of custody, and Ventura to 41 months.
United States US
February 2003, local law enforcement encountered two women who had been raped and left for dead as punishment following their attempted escape from the defendants. Federal law enforcement agents identified two additional female victims and rescued them. A joint Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Federal Bureau of Investigation initiative dismantled the trafficking operation and arrested the defendants. In 2003, four defendants pled guilty to transporting aliens; two defendants pled guilty to involuntary servitude charges; and one defendant pled guilty to conspiracy to commit involuntary servitude. I n M a r c h 2 0 0 3 , A g e n t S e r r a p e r s o n a l l y l i b e r a t e d t w o w o m e n f r o m t h e t r a i l e r s i n w h i c h t h e y w e r e b e i n g h e l d . H e l e d h i s m u l t i - a g e n c y i n v e s t i g a t i v e t e a m f r o m I C E , F B I , a n d t h e H i ≠ d a l g o C o u n t y S h e r i f f ' s O f f i c e t o b r i n g t h e c a s e u n d e r t h e T r a f f i c k i n g V i c t i m s P r o t e c t i o n A c t