#Harmony spa valparaiso in cracked#

“None of the women would speak to us,” Graham said. Graham said that’s what happened when police and Homeland Security agents raided the Pawtucket spas in late 2019 and arrested 16 women and three men. “Even if they have choice in what they’re doing, they’re not going to go against a criminal network. The Asian women are controlled by criminal networks,” Hughes said. “We know a lot about domestic trafficking of minors, because they come to trust you and they talk. There’s also a different approach to understanding how the women working at the massage parlors will react.

“The only way you bring down criminal networks is you have to go as far to the top as you can and reach all the players.” A lot of the massage parlors are connected and have headquarters in other places,” said Hughes. Donna Hughes, a professor of women’s studies at the University of Rhode Island who studies trafficking, said the money is where law enforcement should focus. Other states are starting to do the same. David Medeiros, who was a detective serving on a Homeland Security task force at the time, took the lead, Graham said. Instead of going after the women who work inside the massage parlors, they’d follow the money.

Then, the police, prosecutors, and Homeland Security decided on a different strategy. “We said, ‘We have to figure out a way that they stay closed.’”įar East Acupressure, Harmony Spa, and Pleasant Massage Therapy had been operating for years Far East and Harmony even brought a lawsuit against the city over its body works ordinance.

#Harmony spa valparaiso in cracked#

Police raids had little effect on business beyond raising questions about whether law enforcement was arresting trafficking victims.Īfter Pawtucket police cracked down on three massage parlors in March 2019, “they opened two weeks later,” said Lt. Law enforcement knew all this, but struggled to stop it.