v.j.Ones
05-15-2007, 06:25 AM
Authorities offered their first look Friday into an international operation that brought women from China to allegedly work as prostitutes in Johnson County massage parlors.
Federal sex-trafficking charges against four Chinese nationals came after a series of raids Thursday. Investigators served 16 search warrants on businesses and homes and rescued 15 women.
The federal and local probe has been under way for about 18 months, authorities said.
“According to the charges, these massage parlors were nothing more than a front for a highly profitable prostitution business,” said U.S. Attorney John Wood. “We were able to track the flow of people and money to strike at the heart of this enterprise.”
Those charged Friday:
•Ling Xu, 45, Zhong Yan Liu, 35, and Cheng Tang, 21, who operate two Overland Park businesses, China Rose Massage and China Villa, and a home that authorities think was used both for prostitution and to house women who worked for them.
•Hongmei Madole, 31, who owns Asian Touch Massage in Olathe.
Authorities emphasized that the investigation was continuing. The sealed affidavits describing what investigators were looking for in the raids total about 60 pages. And officials are just now beginning to evaluate the seized records, including logs containing the names of hundreds of customers.
Officials urged customers of the businesses to consider that state crimes could be prosecuted with evidence uncovered by the federal probe.
“If they have information pertinent to the case, it would be beneficial to come forward now,” said Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass. “If they wish to cooperate with us, it could help with their situations.”
Xu, Liu, Tang and Madole are charged with a violation of the Mann Act, also known as the White Slave Traffic Act, which prohibits the transportation of a woman across state lines for prostitution or other sexual crimes.
Because the charges were filed in a criminal complaint, a federal grand jury must review them. At that stage, additional charges and defendants can be added.
Authorities said Friday that two men being held in the Johnson County Jail, who had not yet been charged, could be added to the federal case.
Also, nine women were being held in Johnson County on prostitution-related charges. It appeared Friday that the women were not among those removed from the massage parlors Thursday and offered shelter, food, clothing and counseling.
“We’re not offering social services in jail,” said Don Ledford, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office.
Local officials had been watching the businesses for years. FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said that long before federal agents entered the case, an Overland Park police detective, Kyle Livengood, already had opened an investigation.
“Detective Livengood’s work on this case was nothing short of phenomenal,” Lanza said. “Whether it was surveillance, looking at documents or creating flow charts, he did it all.”
Livengood’s file began to fatten up in September 2006, when the department received an anonymous letter from Long Beach, Calif., written in Chinese but titled “Prostitution” in English, that contained detailed allegations of the activities at one parlor.
“The letter stated that the boss and his woman at China Rose were engaging in coercing, enticing and exploiting Chinese women to reap a fortune for themselves, while sending the United States currency to mainland China,” court records said.
Two months later, a caller to the TIPS Hotline alleged that the operators of the China Rose “smuggled girls from Fuzhou, China” and “rotated” the women out of Johnson County every 20 days through San Francisco, presumably to make the criminal activity harder to track.
The investigation picked up speed in January, when an undercover FBI employee began visiting the three massage parlors mentioned in the charges. On seven of the visits, the employee “was solicited, but did not engage in sexual acts,” according to the charges.
During that same period, investigators collected trash from an Overland Park home that agents suspected was used for prostitution as well as housing women who worked at the shops. Officers quickly concluded that the trash included waste from the China Rose Massage parlor because it also contained financial records and evidence of airline flights to Kansas City from Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York and Las Vegas.
The trash from that home and from the China Villa Massage parlor also contained more than 1,000 condom wrappers and several used condoms.
But as Chinese women came to Johnson County, money from the operation flowed back to China and Australia. Western Union records obtained by investigators show that Liu, Tang, Xu and Xu’s former husband wired $83,300 to China between August 2005 and December 2006, according to court records.
Wood said the case was being prosecuted in Missouri because the women who worked at the parlors entered the area through Kansas City International Airport in Platte County. The businesses also advertised in Pitch Weekly, a Missouri newspaper.
All four defendants made initial appearances in federal court Friday afternoon. Prosecutors asked a judge to jail Liu without bond because he had overstayed his visa. U.S. Magistrate Robert Larsen said he would consider that, but he set bonds for the three others. They will appear in court again Tuesday, when Larsen also will hear a report on each defendant’s immigration status.
http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/104051.html
Federal sex-trafficking charges against four Chinese nationals came after a series of raids Thursday. Investigators served 16 search warrants on businesses and homes and rescued 15 women.
The federal and local probe has been under way for about 18 months, authorities said.
“According to the charges, these massage parlors were nothing more than a front for a highly profitable prostitution business,” said U.S. Attorney John Wood. “We were able to track the flow of people and money to strike at the heart of this enterprise.”
Those charged Friday:
•Ling Xu, 45, Zhong Yan Liu, 35, and Cheng Tang, 21, who operate two Overland Park businesses, China Rose Massage and China Villa, and a home that authorities think was used both for prostitution and to house women who worked for them.
•Hongmei Madole, 31, who owns Asian Touch Massage in Olathe.
Authorities emphasized that the investigation was continuing. The sealed affidavits describing what investigators were looking for in the raids total about 60 pages. And officials are just now beginning to evaluate the seized records, including logs containing the names of hundreds of customers.
Officials urged customers of the businesses to consider that state crimes could be prosecuted with evidence uncovered by the federal probe.
“If they have information pertinent to the case, it would be beneficial to come forward now,” said Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass. “If they wish to cooperate with us, it could help with their situations.”
Xu, Liu, Tang and Madole are charged with a violation of the Mann Act, also known as the White Slave Traffic Act, which prohibits the transportation of a woman across state lines for prostitution or other sexual crimes.
Because the charges were filed in a criminal complaint, a federal grand jury must review them. At that stage, additional charges and defendants can be added.
Authorities said Friday that two men being held in the Johnson County Jail, who had not yet been charged, could be added to the federal case.
Also, nine women were being held in Johnson County on prostitution-related charges. It appeared Friday that the women were not among those removed from the massage parlors Thursday and offered shelter, food, clothing and counseling.
“We’re not offering social services in jail,” said Don Ledford, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office.
Local officials had been watching the businesses for years. FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said that long before federal agents entered the case, an Overland Park police detective, Kyle Livengood, already had opened an investigation.
“Detective Livengood’s work on this case was nothing short of phenomenal,” Lanza said. “Whether it was surveillance, looking at documents or creating flow charts, he did it all.”
Livengood’s file began to fatten up in September 2006, when the department received an anonymous letter from Long Beach, Calif., written in Chinese but titled “Prostitution” in English, that contained detailed allegations of the activities at one parlor.
“The letter stated that the boss and his woman at China Rose were engaging in coercing, enticing and exploiting Chinese women to reap a fortune for themselves, while sending the United States currency to mainland China,” court records said.
Two months later, a caller to the TIPS Hotline alleged that the operators of the China Rose “smuggled girls from Fuzhou, China” and “rotated” the women out of Johnson County every 20 days through San Francisco, presumably to make the criminal activity harder to track.
The investigation picked up speed in January, when an undercover FBI employee began visiting the three massage parlors mentioned in the charges. On seven of the visits, the employee “was solicited, but did not engage in sexual acts,” according to the charges.
During that same period, investigators collected trash from an Overland Park home that agents suspected was used for prostitution as well as housing women who worked at the shops. Officers quickly concluded that the trash included waste from the China Rose Massage parlor because it also contained financial records and evidence of airline flights to Kansas City from Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York and Las Vegas.
The trash from that home and from the China Villa Massage parlor also contained more than 1,000 condom wrappers and several used condoms.
But as Chinese women came to Johnson County, money from the operation flowed back to China and Australia. Western Union records obtained by investigators show that Liu, Tang, Xu and Xu’s former husband wired $83,300 to China between August 2005 and December 2006, according to court records.
Wood said the case was being prosecuted in Missouri because the women who worked at the parlors entered the area through Kansas City International Airport in Platte County. The businesses also advertised in Pitch Weekly, a Missouri newspaper.
All four defendants made initial appearances in federal court Friday afternoon. Prosecutors asked a judge to jail Liu without bond because he had overstayed his visa. U.S. Magistrate Robert Larsen said he would consider that, but he set bonds for the three others. They will appear in court again Tuesday, when Larsen also will hear a report on each defendant’s immigration status.
http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/104051.html