Monday, September 28, 2009

ANOTHER Reason To Boycott Asian Massage Parlors

As most of you know, I'm totally against the Asian massage parlors (AMP) because they're basically just fronts for the mob. These are not happy little women practicing an "ancient chinese secret" for massage, and this is NOT a normal way of life for them.

Below is an article from the local newspaper about the recent police raids on 2 of the AMPs in my neck of the woods. I don't normally post other peoples stuff, but this thing just made my blood run cold and I wanted all you guys out there to read it.

CJ



Sex slavery in Berks County massage parlors
South Korean women are brought into the country and forced into prostitution at massage parlors here, according to investigators trying to crack down on the practice.


There is slavery in Berks County.

They're sex slaves, working in massage parlors that are fronts for prostitution.

And the sex slave trade has prompted investigations leading to a series of raids on area Asian massage parlors in the past few months, according to the lawmen involved.

One federal investigator, an expert in Asian crime organizations, said several such gangs have been operating about a dozen Asian massage parlors as fronts for prostitution in Berks.

The investigator, who requested anonymity, said the local sex slave operations were controlled by South Korean organized crime rings operating out of the Flushing section of Queens, N.Y.

"This is modern-day slavery," the investigator said. "If people knew what goes on in these places and what is behind them, they would be outraged."

According to federal investigators:

Many of the women who work in these massage parlors were tricked and coerced into working as prostitutes.

They typically come from an impoverished region of South Korea and most have only a basic education and few economic prospects.

Criminals lure them with promises of legitimate jobs in the United States and quick cash.

The rings charge the women or their families about $25,000 to smuggle them into the United States from Korea. Often smugglers themselves will loan them the fee at outrageous interest rates.

The slavers typically fly the women through rogue nations such as Libya and often bring them across the Mexican border using passports purchased or stolen from South Koreans who are in the U.S. on legitimate tourist visas.

Tourists who sell their passports to slavers report the documents stolen a few days later and get new ones to return home.

Once in the U.S., the sex slaves are shuttled to Flushing, home to the nation's largest South Korean community.

The women are sent to work in massage parlors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and other nearby states.

When the women arrive in Berks County, they are told they owe the driver $500 for the trip from New York.

Older South Korean women who run the parlors typically offer to pay for the ride, making the women indebted to them.

The older manager, or madam, then explains how the business works. The madam arranges for room and board and deducts those costs from any tips the slaves make from having sex with customers.

The ring maintains its hold over these women by keeping them in debt.

Slavers take the women's passports and identification. The women are told that if they are discovered, they will be thrown in jail and deported and will still owe the ring the $25,000 loan for bringing them to the U.S. in the first place.

The women have sex with a dozen or more men a day, and at the end of the week - after paying for their room and board and interest on the smugglers loan - end up with nothing or only a small amount, perhaps $80.

The rings move the women around frequently. This keeps them from forming bonds with other sex slaves and makes them easier to control.

The women often have a small child or other family back in South Korea, whom the criminals can use to threaten an uncooperative sex slave.

The slavers also use sleep deprivation to make the women easier to control.

Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams said his office is committed to investigating any complaints of suspected prostitution, adding that it is difficult to investigate because workers typically won't cooperate.

"When we receive complaints about those types of establishments, we investigate," Adams said. "I can't comment on which of these places are legitimate and which are not."

Adams said his office will continue to work with federal investigators looking into possible ties to organized crime.

"We are concerned that this is part of a larger ring," he said. "However, we have not received cooperation from the workers, and it is difficult to determine what is going on.

"We suspect that there is much more behind these businesses and we will continue to work with federal authorities in these matters."

The problem with human trafficking and sexual exploitation goes beyond South Korea, according to federal investigators.

Chinese gangs typically operate their rings in big cities with large Chinese populations. Chinese workers in restaurants, garment shops and elsewhere are their customers.
Mexican gangs operate prostitution rings in communities with large populations of migrant workers.

And the list goes on.

Kevin Bales, an expert in slave trafficking and president of the Washington-based nonprofit group Free The Slaves, said human trafficking from South Korea to the U.S. really picked up in the past 10 to 15 years.

Officials from the South Korean Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

Investigators said people from all walks of life are customers of the Asian massage parlors.

"I've talked to people who patronize these businesses and I have asked them why they go there," a federal agent recalled. "One guy said something that really struck me.

"He said he sees the women in the massage parlor as less than human because they do not look like his wife, or his sister, or his mother.

"But they are mothers, sisters and children. And they don't have the option to leave."

Reading Criminal Investigator Pasquale Leporace of the vice and narcotics division said he has worked on four massage parlor cases, and he believes law enforcement has done a good job keeping the places from operating in Reading.

"I don't know of any that are currently open in the city," Leporace said. "If they do pop up again, we will act on it quickly."

19 comments:

The Tickling Master said...

Do you think they'll come after the place you work next?

Steve said...

Thanks for posting this, CJ. I live in Bangkok, and often hear horror stories of Thai girls (most not even from the bars here) who are duped into going to work overseas, where they are promised well-paid jobs in restaurants and end up flat on their back for years in massage places.

Many only ever "escape" when they are too diseased to be of further use, and are sent home here to die.

The more that people know and understand about this problem, the more this can be limited. Probably never stopped entirely, but limited.

If you need to get your rocks off with an Asian woman so badly, come to one of the many hundreds of go-go bars in every city in South-East Asia. You're guaranteed to end up with one, and at least you'll find one who is probably a willing participant.

mdcraig62 said...

The company I used to work for had a supplemental warehouse in an office complex that also housed a strip club and a AMP. I remember having to go pick up some things very early in the AM, and finding all the girls out back in the parking lot having breakfast, and smoking. I guess I had just not wanted to think about the poor girls having to live there, no car, nothing of their own, all the time. Never again.

Anonymous said...

Why not leagalize prostitution like in Europe?
This way the girls could actually go to the police instead of being afraid to go.
Unfortunately sex slavery is nothing new, but if the act is also illegal, the girls have even less reasons to tell the police.

Some of these girls tried to find a better place. To escape their lives in East-Asia as unwanted doughter.
What happens to such girls?
Most likely they will be sent back home to their countries, where they end up on the streets, working in brothels or go-go bars, doing the same thing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm strictly against sex slavery!
I just don't know a good solution for this problem

Deech said...

Even for a guy like me, that's cold!

Anonymous said...

Uhm, maybe leave out that this is from your local paper, or remove the headline or something. A simple google search reveals which town's paper this appeared in, and you can never be too careful protecting your anonymity, right?

Anonymous said...

CJ-
Ever watched the show "Deadwood" (the western that used to be on HBO?)
If you do any research on the real life Al Swearengen (played by Ian McShane on the show) you'll find that he paid the way for several young women to come to the camp, then forced them to work as prostitutes to pay off the debt.
Unfortunately this has been going on for centuries.
It's disgusting. Hopefully they'll eventually be shut down COMPLETELY instead of just opening new ones.

M.

P.S.- Didn't do the poll, but I'm another female reading your blog.
Thanks for posting your stories.

Anonymous said...

It’s not just the Asian parlors it’s also some of the South and Central American places. Don’t forget the Russian parlors I hear they are just as bad.

Anonymous said...

Chances are good if your place is busted some reporter will write about the "many women who work in this massage parlor were tricked and coerced into working as prostitutes. They typically come from an impoverished region of the country and most only have a basic education and few economic prospects" and some cop will add "If people knew what goes on in these places and what is behind them, they would be outraged.""

And I'm sure there are no links between a white massage parlor and organized crime...

Anonymous said...

Anonymous - Europe has had an explosion of human trafficking and sex slavery since legalizing prostitution. Its become a major issue now and is frequently a topic at EU forums. The problem with legalization is that it increased demand exponentially. As a result standard economic models became involved and those selling sex went to where they could get the cheapest supply(eastern Europe and Russia), kidnapping, scamming and otherwise tricking women into the sex trade.

BTW, going to the cops only works if you know you have that option, if you speak the native language, and if you are not so beaten and broken before arriving that you have not already given up on life entirely.

This is *not* an endorsement of the current US laws regarding the sex industry, btw, I think there are better approaches. But flat out EU style legalization has its own set of problems, and among them are a serious increase in human trafficking and slavery.

em jaye peeeeee said...

ugh - horrible story.

I'm all for legalization of sex services - it's crazy that we can buy booze, cigarettes, and twinkies (all of them being substances that are kinda bad for your body) but can't legally buy a handjob (something that does your body good!)

Q for CJ: if it was legalized, wouldn't your annual income go down?

Obviously volume would increase but your price per tug would go down. There is a premium added in for performing an illegal service.

Also, the market would become extremely competitive (not sure you'd have much to worry about with those flesh melons attached to your chest, but still...)

Sam Sneed said...

While the life of a prostitute for a young woman away from her home country is obviously bad, I'm skeptical that it is mostly about slavery as claimed in the article you posted, CJ.

For one thing, the investigator is anonymous. And often people want to make massage parlors sound worse than they are, to get the public behind closing them down.

I found another article on the subject, about a korean massage parlour in Flushing New York, (where your article says most of the Korean prostitutes come from): http://www.igoo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3638

Anonymous said...

ReflexVE- Probably a better solution is a Nevada-like legalization. Prostitution is legal, but only in brothels certified by the state (which, IIRC, aren't allowed in Vegas, casinos don't want visitors giving anyone but them money), and anyone working there has to get health checkups every six months or so (again, IIRC) and be licensed by the state. For the, uh, "consumer," if you will, this takes away the concern that you're contributing to the mob or encouraging sex slavery- everyone in the brothel chose to be there.

The problem with legalization is that too often, it means the government stays completely out, which makes the mob involvement harder to prosecute- if they threaten to hurt the girls or their family back home if they tell the cops everything, the most you can slap them with is hiring undocumented workers, etc. Legalize and regulate, that way you get the government out of the whole "victimless crime"/"consenting adults" thing, and provide less profit incentive for the mob.

Sarah said...

Thanks for posting that piece. According to a lot of sex workers here in the UK, this kind of thing is rare, and the government figures for trafficking are lies.

Posts like this prove them wrong.

There is modern day human slavery going on in all of our major cities. Until this is properly addressed and the sex industry and the authorities begin to work together to help stop this from thriving, it will always go on.

I believe the guy who sees girls regularly ( the punter) should be the first in the line to report these type of places on sex message boards (if he wishes to stay out of it, for obvious reasons) and then - to vote with his feet.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Sam Sneed.

Tell me something, CJ and all who buy into this slave-trade sob-story: if the "victims" don't talk, how do the authorities determine that ALL these women are "slaves"? Did anyone really investigate to find out what they did back home? If the documents to bring them here with are fraudulent (stolen passports and all), why wouldn't the rings NOT take this incriminating evidence back?

The Asian whores I asked here, were whores in their country of origin.
For one "victim" who goes to the cops (how does she manage, being held against her will by the mob, BTW?), there's scores who take part willingly in this, knowing that the debt will be paid in a matter of months (a report from the government I read estimated that girls from South Korea or Thailand could owe as much as $90K and pay that off in 6 months of whoring).
Fun? Hell no, but this is a choice. Once debt-free, they keep doing it for themselves until they can open a nail salon or an AMP. Several girls I "interviewed" worked at the parlor part-time and its cash was financing their own budding business. They called the owner a Korean word that means sister, NOT slaver (!), and usually cared about her...

This country is not about to legalize prostitution - way too controlled by religious fanatics and feminists. But it does want a share of the money generated. To grab it, law enforcement agencies in need of justifying their budgets call the girls "slaves",find a disgruntled one willing to support their claims, and go on a crusade. Local politicians in need of support from boy-loving padres and men-hating clubs order crackdowns at strategic election times. And so you have your parlor raids, that whorish media hungry for tillating news are all too happy to report on.

The public, most of which only jerks off imagining what goes on behing those neon signs buys the BS line, hook, and sinker. And CJ repeats it so that asian girls with funny accents quit taking her customers away with discounted full-on sex, while this "state certified therapist" will only pull on your dick holding her nose for twice the money. And you better come quick (sorry)!

The more I read this blog the more I wanna puke.

To anyone honestly mistaken about this, just go to a couple of AMPs, or even observe from the street when the girls come to work, and tell me I'm full of it.

I'm not saying it's right, mind you, it just is. But there are no victims or we all are. I won't judge a girl for paying criminals and gain a brighter future the only way she knows how. Or a dude for paying for sex. We all do. But I can't stand hypocrites and liars.

OK, my work is done here. This isn't my pulpit. Thanks for reading and hopefully getting some balance on this.

Anonymous said...

Steve... as someone who actively looked for a full service Thai parlor for a VERY long time, I think you're either mistaken or full of it. The only Thai prostitutes I've ever seen were independent escorts. NONE of the parlors offered me so much as a HJ (I did get one, but it was a freak thing in every way). AND I lived near Thai Town and went to MANY such parlors, including some that advertise beautiful girls: it's all a tease with them, I tell ya.

I gave up the search after this Thai place: camera on the front porch, locked front door, live-in staff. The masseuse overtly flirted with me, taking the towel off me to slap my ass with. "What will be your pleasure?" line and all. The girl was tattoed like a bargirl. I was CERTAIN I was gonna finally score with a Thai.
Well, when it came to the finish... she explained that, per order of management, she couldn't be present, but I was welcome to spank it myself, as it is understandable that some customers get excited on occasion!
I thought I had spooked her and went back several times with no result in spite of exceptional chemistry (we became friends).
Turns out the girl was a teacher in the old country, had lost it all in the early '90s (asian crash), and had illegally immigrated to the US for the money. She could pull $5K/month while staying LEGIT and owned a car. I saw her outside and followed her from parlor to parlor, so I know she was no slave AT ALL (shall I repeat that?). She could've been a bargirl at home, but she sounded very educated, and although we did a lot of mutual touching (FREEEE!), I can tell she was a "good girl", as they say, just very lonely. Lovely woman.

My reading up on the subject and all my efforts lead me to believe that although the Thai have a very active sex industry AT HOME, they are overwhelmingly legit overseas, for some reason. And besides a few mongers bragging online of getting HJs (NEVER FS, and they could be lying), it seems that many a hobbyist was left by a Thai to use his hands, even in Europe, where more contact would've been legal.

So excuse me if I call BS, big time BS!

Anonymous said...

This whole blog is BS. The women work for $$$. Most were hookers back home and well knew what they were getting in to. LE is on the take, many are married or know brothel owners.

Some places are open for years, while others close as soon as they open. (competition is snuffed out)
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Is the master plan. That's all. Now pimps and those who force young women to get on drugs to work? That's a whole different story.

Anonymous said...

i am presently trying to get my girlfriend out of this circle ,we live in annadale ,but she had to go back to flushing because of her debt she pays 2000 a month to korea , another 2000 a month to a fake advertising business, and the cab company i dont even want to get started ,i love her very much and she loves me i am a us citizen we have a home guess who we pay rent too ,,how do i get her out of this life it makes her sick, she has been stuck in it for 10 years i know aot about it and almost had her out until she got breast probems and needed major medical help in flushing, we will get married someday when we can get ride of her paper marriage in georgia i cant say anything cause she will get in trouble ,,,this sucks she is 47 when does this stop

Anonymous said...

I live in the SF Bay Area. I am Caucasian, but speak fluent Mandarin as I lived in Taiwan when I was young. I have recently discovered AMP. Most of the ones in my area are Chinese and I have had extensive discussions with the girls. In general, they give me kind of typical hard luck stories such as getting divorced and having to come here to make money. None of think that it is a great job, but they make the best of it and most try very hard to make your experience good. All of the ones that I talked to say they rent rooms in the neighborhood and one had to move and asked me if I knew of any places. I think that they are mostly bored and lonely as they have left their friends and relatives at home, and their English is not good enough to make friends here. One I met had a child with a Caucasian man and now has a Chinese boyfriend and is thinking of marrying him. Many of them are going to school to learn English and many have plans to go to college. They are mostly in their 30's and 40's. One place that I really like, the owner is from Fuzhou and most of the girls are also from that city. All coming from that city, there is a camaraderie with each other that they have that is very refreshing. They are very definitely not trafficked. I went to a Korean FS place once. That was a totally different experience; those girls could very well have been trafficked.