【US smashes sex trafficking rings】 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4643529.stm US police have broken up two human trafficking rings which smuggled hundreds of South Korean women into California to work as prostitutes. They arrested about 50 people and are questioning around 150 women after taking them into protective custody. The women were working in dozens of brothels disguised as acupuncture clinics and massage parlours in Los Angeles and San Francisco. This could be one of the largest human trafficking cases prosecuted in the US. About $3m (£1.7m) were recovered in the operation. Police are now questioning the women to piece together the details of the large smuggling operation. "This type of criminal organisation exploits the hopes and dreams of immigrants," said US attorney Debra Wong Yang at a press conference in Los Angeles. The women were reportedly charged $16,000 to be smuggled into the US. They were repaying their debts by working as prostitutes and giving their earnings to the ring. Those arrested have been charged with conspiracy to harbour illegal aliens for prostitution and trans- porting them across state lines, as well as money laundering and sex trafficking. The two rings operated separately, one in San Francisco and one in southern California. But investigators believe the ringleaders knew each other and were lending each other some of the workers. "If they needed a couple of extra women in San Francisco, the (Los Angeles) ring would send them up," said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the US attorney's office in Los Angeles. Some of the women are believed to have entered the country through the Mexican and Canadian borders, while others used illegally obtained tourist visas.
【Raids on Brothel Rings Net 45 Arrests】 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-smuggling2jul02,0,6306507.story?coll=la-home-local Two criminal syndicates suspected of smuggling hundreds of South Korean women into the United States to work at brothels in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas have been broken up with the arrest of 45 people, including the ringleaders, federal authorities announced Friday. In raids on massage parlors, chiropractic offices and apartments at both ends of the state, federal agents and local law enforcement officers took into custody nearly 150 suspected prostitutes as material witnesses. <後略>
【Agents Said to Dismantle a Korean Sex Ring】 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/02/national/02sex.html? SAN FRANCISCO, July 1 - Federal agents raided scores of brothels and businesses and arrested more than two dozen people here in the dismantling of an international sex trafficking and human smuggling ring that lured Korean women to the United States and forced them to work as captive prostitutes, the authorities said on Friday. The crackdown on human smuggling was set in motion late on Thursday, when about 400 federal and state law enforcement officials searched 50 brothels and other businesses in San Francisco and the Bay Area, stemming from the indictment of 29 men who were subsequently charged with sex trafficking, money laundering and harboring illegal aliens. The men are also charged with con- spiracy to transport women from South Korea and force them to work as prostitutes, said the United States attorney, Kevin V. Ryan. The arrests here, along with the arrests of 18 people in Los Angeles in a related case, stem from a nine-month investigation by federal, state and local law enforcement agents looking into a human smuggling and sex trafficking ring that the authorities said may be one of the largest and most sophisticated ever. <後略>
【Calif. Cops Crack Down on Smuggling Rings】 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/02/AR2005070200353.html SAN FRANCISCO -- Forty-five people were arrested during nighttime raids for allegedly conspiring to smuggle South Korean women into the United States to work as prostitutes at massage parlors and other businesses, authorities said. "We're dealing with a very sophisticated, somewhat underground organization here," U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan said Friday. Hundreds of officers in the San Francisco Bay area and Southern California made the arrests during raids of brothels, homes and businesses. Authorities said the Bay Area and Southern California raids were coordinated but wouldn't elaborate. In the Bay Area, authorities searched some 50 brothels, homes and businesses and arrested 27 suspects on Thursday night, U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan said. Twenty-nine people, including 24 of the suspects arrested, face charges including sex trafficking and money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco. Eighteen people were arrested in the Los Angeles area on prostitution-related conspiracy charges. Thursday night's crackdown "dismantled one of the largest smuggling and prostitution rings ever un- covered in Southern California," said Marcy Forman, who heads the Office of Investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. About 100 women, mostly South Korean nationals, were taken to an undisclosed location where they were being cared for and interviewed by authorities, Ryan said. Some of the women allegedly paid $16,000 each to be smuggled and were expected to repay their debts by working as prostitutes at brothels that were housed in massage parlors, spas, acupuncture clinics and other businesses. --- Associated Press writer Ryan Pearson contributed to this report from Los Angeles.