Yeah, I’m writing about this a lot–deal with it–but read this:
In a tiny bit of good news: Today the Seattle P-I reported the busting-up of a notorious Northwest prostitution ring, which for years has promised destitute young women better lives in the U.S., only to make them “virtual sex slaves” in brothels in Seattle and Portland. In a 49-page complaint, Seattle-based FBI agent Cory Cote offered details on the excessively creepy international smuggling and prostitution ring, whose first station was in Asia, where “brokers” offer to help impoverished young women from China, Vietnam, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand obtain temporary or student visas to enter the U.S.–for a cost as high as $40,000. Once in the country, the women would be forced into prostitution as a way to “repay the debt,” working out of brothels as far south as Portland, and as close to home as Seattle’s First Hill, where two or three women lived and worked out of an apartment in the “new, nicely appointed” Vantage Park Apartments at 1010 Alder Street. On Tuesday, five Seattle men, a man from Portland, and a man and woman from Los Angeles were arrested and charged with conspiracy and transporting individuals to commit prostitution. Meanwhile, 14 former sex slaves are being held in federal custody, and “more arrests are expected.”
So why am I posting the details of this story again?
I’m not. Note the minor differences in the details.
This is a report from 2002, the last time a similar trafficking ring was busted here around Seattle, with a totally different cast of players. (And this particular run-down of it comes from The Stranger, no less…where ads for “services” like these populate the back pages with great frequency.)
No doubt some slimeballs somewhere are reading today’s headlines and scheming on how they can take over this once again less populated “market space.”
Here’s the Seatte P-I’s breaking story from September 18, 2002.
August 2006
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