Major prostitution bust: Seattle police raid 11 massage parlors... (Chinese organized crime)

[MelissaB]

Major prostitution bust: Seattle police raid 11 massage parlors, freeing 26 women

Five owners and operators were arrested and the massage parlors were shuttered last week in the raids in Seattle's Chinatown-International District and Beacon Hill neighborhoods.

From the outside, the commercial space below a three-story apartment building on Beacon Hill doesn’t look like much: Beige paint. A small neon sign. Grimy windows blacked out with heavy fabric.

In January 2015, a woman whose daughter lived in the apartment building noticed a male-only clientele visiting the storefront, mostly at night. After some online research, she found the name of the business — “Magic Touch” — on Rubmaps.com, a site listing illicit massage parlors where men write reviews and rate the women they pay for sexual services.

The complaint she sent to police set in motion a vast prostitution and money-laundering investigation, tying massage parlors and spas in Seattle to a sophisticated criminal network that brings Chinese women into the U.S. through hubs in California and New York and funnels millions of dollars back to China, said Sgt. Tom Umporowicz of the Seattle Police Department’s Vice & High Risk Victims Section.

There’s just so much money involved. It’s a crazy amount of money,” Umporowicz said. “This is Chinese organized crime, plain and simple.”

More: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/a-crazy-amount-of-money-seattle-police-raid-prostitution-network-in-massage-parlors/

[uppityperson]

1. K&R, great work

[cilla4progress]

2. Trump on their customer

list here, too? 😉

[Leghorn21]

3. GREAT NEWS, keep the heat on these mobster scum buckets!!

And yes, I popped by “Rubmaps.com” and everything the law needs to know is RIGHT FRICKIN THERE. Couldn’t read reviews, they want $19.99, but TONS of places are listed

Hey, maybe some nationwide publicity via trump’s BFF Cindy will shine a bright light on these dens of terror - apparently, everybody knows what these places are up to, but I guess greasing $$ the right palms keeps them up and running...but enough local, public OUTCRY would surely be an effective way to ruin some of these rackets and get those poor young women outta there

Head em up, move em out NOW

[Duppers]

5. "Rubmaps.com" - holyshite!

I didn't know that existed. How'd you hear about it?

You're right, there must be a lot of cash flowing from there to law enforcement.

Your post deserves its own OP.

[Leghorn21]

7. It's in the 3rd paragraph of Melissa's OP, Duppers!!

“Stuff you learn on DU”

It’s a virtual roadmap to human trafficking, for real

[Duppers]

8. Damn, I'm bad. Cruised right by it.

Thank you!

[dalton99a]

9. Sure looks like a fast-growing industry

[erronis]

21. Not sure if 'shrooms grow that well, however. Takes a lot of tender care and magic pee.

[uponit7771]

4. Wouldn't be surprised if any of Trumps kidnapped or "lost" border kids show up

[malaise]

6. Ditto

This is great news - hope they're doing this nation-wide

[dalton99a]

10. No kidding.

[octoberlib]

18. Bingo! One of the companies that's handling detention centers, Geo, was being investigated

for human trafficking.

[debsy]

26. This is exactly what I have been thinking since they started the separations at the border.

It is painfully obvious to me that dumpster is firmly entrenched in the human trafficking industry (started with Jeffrey Epstein many years ago). They brought a bunch of the kids up to NY. Why? I think we know the answer but nobody will say it. The guy and his crowd (including his family) are the worst types of criminals and scums of the earth.

[EveHammond13]

28. BINGO

[Hermit-The-Prog]

11. is there a GOPer campaign donor gathering place nearby?

[IronLionZion]

12. Yelp reviews weren't enough?

The thought of creeps writing reviews for illegal activities sounds pretty dumb. Are there reviews for drug dealers too?

[MelissaB]

13. MILLIONS. Millions of dollars funneled back to China!

Link to tweet

[yaesu]

14. I'm glad they are clamping down on the sex trafficking abusers but I do hope they treat the women

like the victims they are, let them stay in the US if they want, give them food, shelter & the chance to work at a legal occupation, help find them work, a path to a better life. I would have no problem with my tax money being used for support.

[nolabear]

15. Local news says they have advocates helping them.

I just hope the feds don’t just decide to ship them back. They’d have nothing.

[erronis]

23. Maybe dumpf can slap a tariff on the trade and pocket the change.

Takes emoluments to a whole new level.

(Wonder if he's considered turning the WH into a pay-for-play joint.)

[Mopar151]

16. Slavers. Sub-human life forms, who hide behind corrupt and broken governments

In "D'jango Unchained", D'jango explains to the Bounty Hunter who has "collected" him (in lieu of actual $$$) "There ain't but one creature on earth that' lower than the Head House Nigger - and that's a Black slaver!" Quentin Tarrantino understands the dark and dire linkages of the world, and makes them into unforgettable scenes.

You know what? D'Jango is right on the money! Look at the worst scum worldwide, and it's all about holding power over others. Debt Bondage, Migrant/Farm worker abuse, "Labor Contractors" who bring in crews, pay a pittance, and hold passports, travel papers, etc. hostage. Saudi royals, and the excessively privileged whose "servants" are de facto slaves. Of course, the industrial - scale pimps known as "Human Trafficers". Drug cartel foot soldiers, whose lives are forefiet if they blink, and whose families share that fate. The Irish Laundries, and innumerable other cases of the Catholic Church. Moonies, and all the other exploitative cults.

White Supremacists, White Nationalists, "Christian Identity"preachers, and all of their ilk, deserve extra scorn, for telling the weak and the gullible that they have refuge in pure hate.
I could go for days, but there's lunch.....

[rustysgurl]

17. It's everywhere ...

Human trafficking (at least not the sexual variety) came to our little town in the Midwest outside Kansas City recently. Our local Chinese buffet restaurant, which did a brisk business, was shut down when the Feds raided it. Apparently, the owners of the restaurant were keeping the majority of their staff as prisoners in their basement, having smuggled them into the country illegally. The workers were not being paid, but were working off their 'passage' in the hopes that one day they would be freed to live here in the U.S.

This restaurant isn't even 2 miles from my house. Thankfully I never patronized it, but I know a lot who did. If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.

[octoberlib]

19. Trump just loves him some organized crime and money laundering.

Wouldn't be surprised to learn that he's sold them some condos.

[llmart]

20. Trump and the GOP look the other way on smuggling people in for the sex trade.

Where's their cry of "build that wall" to keep the sex slaves out? Nothing?? I didn't think so and that's because he and his ilk wouldn't be able to visit these "parlours" to either use their services or launder their money or both.

Despicable.

[littlemissmartypants]

22. Human trafficking, soon to surpass drug trafficking as our

#1 crime. It was #3 in 2016. I too suspect that is where the "lost" children are headed. NC ranks in the top ten states with this problem. Sickening.

[getagrip_already]

24. it isn't just sex......

These trafficers push woman into work in all kinds of service industries; nail salons, beauty parlors, restaurants, bars, even donut shops.

The woman, or their families, get into debt and they are forced into slavery to work it off.

So if you are going to get all high and mighty about day spas, think back to where you get your nails or hair done, where you buy your coffee, or eat, or a dozen other service related industries and consider that you too are supporting trafficking and slavery.

Just because the work doesn't involve sex doesn't mean they aren't being enslaved or abused.

[kcr]

29. The Trump buddy who owns the "spas" also owns nail salons

They just shut a bunch of nail salons in the area I live, for various violations, which makes me wonder.

[EveHammond13]

25. let's remember Jared & family were selling - SELLING - US Visas to Chinese nationals

in exchange for investment in their failing business

[Leghorn21]

27. They sure were, Eve - I double-checked the story this am bc I wasn't sure if I recalled correctly

May 2017:

The Kushner family hopes to lure investments from wealthy business owners in China with the promise of American visas.

Nicole Kushner Meyer, the sister of White House adviser and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, spoke at an event in Beijing on Saturday. She was marketing a Kushner-owned property in New Jersey -- invest in the development and get into the United States on a so-called EB-5 visa.

The EB-5 visa allows immigrants a path to a green card if they invest more than $500,000 in a project that creates jobs in the United States.

An ad for the event, held at a Ritz-Carlton hotel, said "Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States.

https://money.cnn.com/2017/05/06/news/jared-kushner-nicole-family-event/index.html

In your face sleaze bags from the git go

[Tetrachloride]

30. which area are worse

According to this website, per capita, California, Ohio, Florida, Nevada are 4 are of the worst 11.

https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/11-worst-states-for-human-trafficking-in-america-524251/9/

Another website listed 5 states largely different than these 11.

I hope there's a chain reaction among prosecutors to find probable cause to raid these places. I suspect RICO can come into play. (just speculating. I dont know the law, just the spirit.)

[dalton99a]

31. Don't forget Trump's grandfather ran a whorehouse