413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

hotels in their name … they have everything complete disassociated from them except for
when the girl hands them the money. So like I was saying, a lot of the guys that we get are
the ones that slip up because the hotel was in their name, the cell phone is in their name,
there is messaging between the pimp and the girl. A lot of the guys will train their girl to
dump all the messages or erase them as they get them, the guy will not have any messages
on his phone or the phone will be locked … It is tough for us to get into phones that are
locked like that. So you are getting the guys that are kind of the lower end and are just
getting into and do not really know what they are doing. (San Diego Law Enforcement
Official)
Although stakeholders stated that most pimps blow their money on cars, jewelry, and partying, some
pimps will also invest in more legitimate businesses. As one federal law enforcement officer noted, “They
do try and invest in some other things, in quasi-legit things. Some do the organized crime thing where you
make your money from your base criminal activity and then you flip and that is how they are laundering
their money … record labels are big.” In order to operate at a level with investments, wire transfers, and
deposits, pimps must have a thought-out plan.
One of the biggest changes to San Diego’s UCSE is the use of refillable cash cards (the most common one
being Green Dot cards) to make purchases, including online advertisements, hotels/motels, and gas. They
are considered to be cash on hand and are not traceable—there is no deposit that can be traced. As one
federal law enforcement official explained, “You can subpoena Green Dot and see what was purchased
and [for] how much money, but the money could be gone by the time you hang up the phone. But, at least
you have historical information.”
Escort Services
Stakeholders did not mention much about escort services in the San Diego area except that they do exist
and often bring in a lot of money. The women that work for escort services are considered a “higher class”
than those who work on the street or post ads online. They charge from $150 to $500 to show up, and
then charge an additional several hundred to several thousand to perform a variety of sex acts. There is
usually a 60-40, or in some cases an 80-20, split between the girl and the agency. Escorts can make up to
$10,000 in one week for five to six dates and upwards of six figures in a year. They often receive gifts from
their clients which include cars, jewelry, apartments, and houses.
Unlike most other venues within the UCSE, with the exception of massage parlors, escort services accept
credit cards and provide a receipt for services rendered. Some escort services are known to run scams and
charge the client for anything and everything, from kissing to groping to showering. As one law
enforcement officer explained, “They’re running scams, escort scams … a lot of them come in the room
with a credit card swiper, they have it right there with them. Of course, most of your new iPhones can do
it, so they have the app where they can just do it right over their phone.”
Escort services owners are very careful and thoughtful in their business structure, investments, and
business practices in order to evade law enforcement. They invest in shell companies or real estate; as one
stakeholder stated, “You will see true, well-thought-out money laundering.” In order to evade law
enforcement detection, they run counter-surveillance. As one law enforcement officer explained, “They
look up a name on the Internet, they actually have a website called ‘rate a cop.’”
Erotic Massage Parlors
Massage parlors were cited as one of the primary venues for UCSE activity in San Diego. Similar to the
other cities in this study, massage parlors were primarily run by Asians and highly organized. As figure 4.7
illustrates, very little changed in San Diego from 2011 to 2013, with the exception of a slight increase in
the number of massage parlors in the Mission Hill area. Those working inside massage parlors are
commonly Asian women. Most women who work in San Diego massage parlors are licensed massage
therapists with licenses from an accredited school in the Los Angeles area. There is also the option of
purchasing black market licenses which allow individuals, or massage parlor owners, to circumvent the
time-consuming licensure process. As one law enforcement officer explained, “If you don’t want to go to
the six to eight months of school, whatever it takes, to get your [license], because it’s 500 hours now,
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