Denver’s crackdown on illegal massage parlors doesn’t end with the raid of 18 businesses and the arrests of 35 people.
State Rep. Alice Borodkin, D-Denver, is seeking a $450,000 federal grant to fund for three years the local task force investigating human trafficking.
On Sunday, she called the crimes uncovered in Denver a “dark and dirty affront to human rights.”
Denver police began getting complaints about illegal activity going on at massage parlors around the city about a year ago.
The complaints came mostly from nearby business owners and residents who noticed unusual activity, said Police Chief Gerald Whitman at a news conference Sunday.
Six months ago, police began watching the businesses – 40 in all – and raided 18 of them. Sixteen parlors were shut down.
About $90,000 was taken in the raids, and officers seized cars worth a total of $80,000.
The rest of the parlors remain under investigation.
Borodkin wants to implement a state law against human trafficking and try to seek federal charges for crimes that seem to cross state lines.
Prostitution is not the only crime related to human trafficking, Borodkin said, citing young men used as camel jockeys for training and racing camels and mail-order brides being exploited.
Denver is a secondary city for organized prostitution of immigrant women; most human trafficking begins in border states such as California and Washington, said vice division Sgt. Mark Fleecs.
The women are sometimes sold by their relatives and work as prostitutes in the U.S. to pay off debts to the people who transported them.
The prostitutes nabbed in Denver are mostly Asian. One massage parlor employed Eastern European women.
Many of the prostitutes busted in Denver had been in this country for about five years – long enough to pay their debts, Fleecs said.
Even though the women may be working in fear and against their will, some of them stayed in the business because it is lucrative, he said.
No trafficking suspects were arrested, only madams, prostitutes and customers, police said.
The massage parlors are typically set up in strip malls and are easy to set up, Fleecs said.
“Our goal is to keep that enforcement pressure at a level that keeps these businesses from operating,” he said.
The illegal businesses may not be obvious to passers-by, but telltale signs are bars on the windows, a buzzer at the door and a locked entrance.
In many of these parlors, customers are greeted by an older madam who sets a “fee” for the massage, about $50 to $100.
Once alone with the prostitutes, johns are charged a “tip” for sex acts that can cost $100 to $300.
The women arrested for prostitution are often reluctant and fearful to talk to police because the traffickers are tied to organized crime, police said.
Anyone with information in this case can call CrimeStoppers at 720-913-STOP (7867) or the national human trafficking hotline at 1-888-3737-888.
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-820-1219 or at fcardona@denverpost.com.
