Officers had detained 10 Asian women and, through interpreters, tried to determine which of them were victims and which were perpetrators. The city, he said, had shut down four brothels posing as spas. Even before the news conference started, however, the case had begun to fall apart. Some sex workers — potential witnesses against the organizers — were gone.
One of the spas would avoid being shut down altogether. The one person charged with trafficking in the case later was allowed to plead guilty to profiting from prostitution, a lesser charge. Police across the nation have touted sex spa stings for years as evidence that they are cracking down on rampant human trafficking.
The publicity surrounding these operations hit a high in February in raids in South Florida that led to charges against New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft , who police said was caught on video paying for sex acts. Charges were dropped or pleaded down. Spas often popped up in the same or new locations. And any notion of going after higher-ups who profit from trafficking, including international crime figures bringing women from overseas, never materialized.
Or how many icebergs are there? Hints of a broader organization not touched by law enforcement stings hover beneath the surface. Through a search of thousands of Florida public records ranging from corporate filings to massage licenses, USA TODAY found connections among more than a third of the 41 spas raided in the three recent operations alone, and links from them to a larger network of potentially suspect massage parlors all over the state.
Prosecutors defend their track record by noting that a felony trafficking charge is just one tool in their toolbox. Because of the difficulty of getting victims to cooperate, they can look to alternatives that do not require proof that a victim was coerced, such as racketeering or money laundering. Did we shut them down? Was somebody punished? Was somebody held accountable? Was a victim rescued?
