413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

Women are often rotated through different massage parlors in the country, especially if there is a large
event occurring in another city. This is a clear indication that parlors are connected, whether it is through
the same ownership or different owners networking with one another:
Brothels
We’ve seen where the women are transferred from one spa to the next spa from state to
state. A lot depends on the amount of money that particular woman earns. We’ve seen
cases where a woman is quite popular with the clientele, then they will transfer her to a
different spa depending on what events are going on in that city. Dallas, they are home to
the Dallas Cowboys, the big stadium there, and if they have some event there they’ll
transfer their money earners to those clubs. Whereas Atlanta has the SEC championship
going on, they’ll have more girls come here. (Federal Law Enforcement Official)
The Atlanta area also has a high degree of Latino brothel activity, with brothels generally operating out of
rented apartments or cantina dance clubs and advertised through word of mouth. Girls are recruited from
Mexico with promises of romance and support to encourage them to come to the United States. The girls,
illegally smuggled into the country, are then forced to work in the brothels, often having to service many
individuals (up to 50) in the course of a day. There are two scenarios that will often play out in Latino
brothels, both of which are described below by a federal law enforcement official:
We found, as it relates to the Latino brothels, most of the brothels are operated out of
apartment complexes in our Hispanic community. The women are typically smuggled
into the United States after being recruited in their home country by the traffickers, and
you guys probably know the methods they use to lure the women in, romance, marriage,
you know. And the women are brought here and then they are in some ways forced to
engage in this activity. And we found that they utilize—well, you have a set brothel that
may operate out of one apartment and the women are brought there on a weekly basis.
The women are switched out on a weekly basis. The brothels are usually open from 10:00
a.m. to 10:00 p.m. There may be one or two women working per brothel, along with a
house ma’am they call it, and then they service clients. Most of the clients will be there on
Friday and Saturday nights, usually after pay day. And then on Sundays, the women are
transferred to another location and new women are cycled through. Maybe 80 percent of
the clients are going to be Hispanic males.
There’s another Latino trafficking scheme in which the women are transported to
locations to service their clients. And typically this is done by the women contacting a
driver, not a taxi driver, but a driver commonly known as a “labrero.” And they will keep
names and telephone numbers of different labreros in different cities who they know and
trust and when they are in that particular city, they will call that labrero up who knows
where the clients are and they will, the labrero will pick up the woman and take her
around to different clients that evening. And then the money is split between, she’ll pay
the driver for that night’s take and then the rest of the money is typically given to her
pimp, to her boyfriend, whatever you want to call it. A lot of women who are trusted to
contact a driver to be transported are usually forced. They are told by their pimp or their
boyfriend or whoever is in control of them that you have a quota for that night to make.
You have to make a certain amount or service a certain amount of guys that night before
you can come back home and if you don’t there are other consequences. (Federal Law
Enforcement Official)
There is a third scenario, which is not as common, where girls would trade sex in the back rooms of
cantina bars, where they would also sell dollar dances to Hispanic clientele. These cantina rooms are also
run by traffickers and women are usually allowed to keep some proceeds.
The pricing structure is similar to Latino brothels in the other study sites: $30 for 15 minutes. However,
according to law enforcement, the more attractive, younger women may charge from $45 to $50 per 15
minutes. Some brothels enforce a $500 daily quota, which would translate to around 15 or 20 clients per
day, although some stakeholders heard that some women saw up to 40 clients a day. One to two women,
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