Reliable data on trafficking in massage parlors is nonexistent. With court-ordered video surveillance in place, we found that the women selling sex acts in these strip mall brothels were virtual slaves.'īut as I previously reported for Deadspin, no charges were ever filed to that effect, and the police admitted there wasn't sufficient evidence of trafficking. They were averaging eight clients a day… with no days off.' In an editorial in the Boston Globe, Snyder added that the 'investigation took us on an eye-opening journey into the ugly world of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. They were moved from location to location. At Aronberg's press conference, he declared that 'human trafficking often occurs in plain sight,' and Snyder said 'the tentacles of this go from here to New York to China,' and that women had 'no access to transportation. Many news reports presented women of Asian descent working at parlors as victims of human trafficking, spurred on by Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg and Martin County Sheriff William Snyder, the public faces of the sting.
Asian massage parlors reentered the national consciousness earlier this year, when New England Patriots owner and Donald Trump pal Robert Kraft was, according to police, caught receiving hand jobs at Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida.
