JPG of Smithtrafficking
At a hearing on “The Next Ten Years in the Fight Against Human Trafficking: Attacking the Problem with the Right Tools” on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 17, 2012, Jada Pinkett Smith, right, her actor husband Will Smith, and their daughter Willow Camille Reign Smith, left, testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta for AP)
New York’s Staten Island — Locals in the borough are worried about the increasing number of sex-for-sale establishments posing as “massage parlors” and “spas” in Staten Island neighborhoods. They are also worried that the women who work there might be there against their will, as they are under the strict control of criminal networks that traffic in people.
Readers responded to two pieces about this trend on SILive.com by pointing out locations where they believe prostitution flourishes behind front doors and windows that appear to be hidden.
In response to an article on SILive.com, readers pointed out locations where they believe prostitution flourishes behind shady-looking establishments with locked front doors and covered windows.
The address and phone number of what he claimed was one such institution in New Dorp were included in a male caller’s phone message for a reporter.
“It’s horrible that it’s in this neighborhood,” remarked the man. “I called [Congressman Michael] Grimm’s office — this place needs to get closed.”
A reporter was contacted by a woman who lives in New Dorp and runs a business there to talk about the same “spa.”
She claimed that one late Monday night in July, she and her son saw “a bunch of kids” entering the institution. Her son, curious, called the number on the exterior sign at 11:15 p.m. to inquire as to when the establishment would close for the evening.
“You come now, I wait [for] you,” the New Dorp mother claims the woman who answered the phone said to her son.
A man was shutting up this shop “spa” when the businesswoman and her son noticed three Asian “girls” standing outside an hour later. After that, the three women went around the block and stood in front of a small shop to wait.
New Dorp resident reported, “Then the same guy [who closed the shop] pulls up in a new silver Mercedes wagon” and the three women boarded it. “I wrote down the license plate number of the Mercedes.”
“You come now,” she said, was the text message her son got on his smartphone the following morning from the business he had called the previous evening.
The businesswoman claimed, “I called an NYPD detective [to complain], and he said to go to a community board meeting.”
TRAVIS ‘EROTIC’ ESTABLISHMENT?
For example, one reader gave a writer the address of “a place in Travis… located in a residential area surrounded by houses and within a mile of PS 26.”
“Until 11 p.m., they are open. “They buzz the client in after peeking out the window, and they have an all-male clientele,” she noted in an email.
“I always thought this facility was an erotic parlor, so I conducted my own research to confirm my suspicions. The wonderful thing about the Internet is that you can find anything you want to know by using the appropriate keywords.
“To begin with, if you search for [its name] on Google, you won’t find anything wrong with this location. However, after entering the address and phone number, this location appeared on numerous sexual websites,” she wrote.
“People are beginning to awaken.”
In an interview late last week, state senator Andrew Lanza stated, “People are starting to wake up and get it.”
Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis and State Senator Andrew Lanza have advocated for legislation that addresses sex-for-sale in a number of ways. (The Advance of Staten Island)
“We received a couple of anonymous letters [since the stories were published on SILive] and forwarded them to authorities.”
Nicole Malliotakis, an assemblywoman, described a similar experience.
“A couple of people contacted me through Facebook, [and others] phoned my office and gave me suspicious locations,” she stated. “I forwarded the list to the [NYPD] Borough Command.”
The NYPD was also alerted to suspicious-looking establishments by the office of Borough President James Oddo.
“It is disturbing that prostitution seems to be popping up in some storefronts in our residential neighborhoods,” he stated. “My office forwards any locations that don’t look right to the NYPD for investigation and will continue to do so as we become aware of them.”
Police in Metuchen, New Jersey, arrested five individuals at two “massage parlors” on Main Street in June after receiving anonymous reports.
Four of the people that were detained were reportedly from Flushing, Queens: Jian X. Duan (“Nina”), 41; Wu Dai, 49; Jian Ping Lu, 54; and Qi Yang (“Jessica”), 44. According to reports, the fifth, Li Yun, 51, lived in Metuchen.
Hailan Jin, 42, of Flushing, was also arrested in July after he allegedly asked a Bergen County (N.J.) prosecutor’s office undercover detective for a sex act in exchange for money at a massage parlor on Ramapo Valley Road in Oakland, according to police.
“The arrest came after a two-month investigation by police and the prosecutor’s office into complaints of prostitution at the massage parlor,” nj.com stated.
Concerns about human trafficking
Despite two years of work and bipartisan backing, anti-trafficking legislation has not yet been passed in Albany, despite the efforts of both Assemblywoman Malliotakis and Senator Lanza.
“Trafficking is an insidious form of modern-day slavery,” Lanza stated. Among the victims, 95 percent are women. Teenage girls [and others] in vulnerable situations are being targeted by criminals; this is a terrible situation that is impacting thousands of lives in New York City.
“I did a lot of research, and it curdled my blood,” said Lanza, a lawyer and former prosecutor in the office of the Manhattan district attorney.
Trafficking investigations are frequently started by public tips and complaints.
David Marwell, special agent in charge of the Homeland Security Investigations division in Dallas, which is a part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), stated that raising public knowledge of human trafficking is the best method to combat this crime.
His remarks came after ten Dallas massage parlors were raided in March 2014 on suspicion of prostitution, leading to the arrest of three South Korean women and eighteen Thai women for immigration offenses.
In the ten massage parlors, the Dallas probe “uncovered a revolving door of owners and female workers,” according to ICE. “The employees are often rotated throughout the U.S. to work in other massage parlors and prostitution establishments,” stated ICE.
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