413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

typically between the ages of 16 and 35, usually work in a brothel at any one time. In some cases, 50
percent of the proceeds went to the drivers and 50 percent went to the house; in other instances, the
women kept a certain percent of the money once they paid off their debts.
A lot of traffickers and women they recruit are from Tenancingo and Tlaxcala, Mexico, an area known for
trafficking. Traffickers often spend months grooming the woman or girl, and in some cases, will marry her
as part of that grooming process. They build mansions and purchase expensive cars in Mexico with the
proceeds generated through their trafficking enterprise in the United States as a way of displaying their
wealth and stature in society:
Most of the money is being sent back overseas because part of their recruiting method is
showing that they’re prominent. So they’ll send the money back and purchase a bunch of
land, nice houses and stuff, so that as they’re wooing this or romancing this young lady to
come to the United States, he also has to romance her family as well. And in doing so, we
can show the family, the father, hey I’m going to take very good care of your daughter,
look at this mansion I have, we have parties, that’s part of the whole recruitment method,
so that money is being sent over to enhance their lifestyles overseas, continue with their
recruiting methods. A lot of the money is being sent, we believe is being sent by couriers.
(Federal Law Enforcement Official)
As stated above, women often move from brothel to brothel throughout different cities. Some brothel
owners work together to trade girls in order to provide new faces to their clientele. Brothels are typically
advertised through word of mouth, business cards (usually advertising a construction or paint business),
or in some cases, by hanging something like a wreath or a specific flower over the door of the brothel.
They only serve Hispanic clientele and in some cases will only serve Latinos from a particular town in
Mexico. Although law enforcement has a tacit understanding of how these cells work together to transfer
women and funds, they do not know is if there is a head trafficker controlling all of these businesses from
Mexico. Law enforcement does know that the Hispanic traffickers are very controlling and often abusive,
similar to many American-born pimps:
If you look at the studies of domestic trafficking, women on the tracks, the American
pimps, the Latino pimps or whatever they call themselves, there’s a lot of similarities. The
way they recruit, the way they control. The only thing that’s different is that these guys
are from the United States and the others are foreign. (Federal Law Enforcement Official)
Conclusion
Interviews with local, state, and federal investigators, prosecutors, and other stakeholders across the eight
study sites revealed similarities and differences in the structure of the underground commercial sex
economy across sites. It is important to note that when interpreting findings, stakeholder perceptions of
the UCSE are predominantly based on cases investigated and prosecuted within each jurisdiction and
therefore represent one view of the prevalence of the issue. As discussed in chapter 2, cities were selected
for this study, in part, due to the advanced nature of their investigations and prosecutions relative to other
cities in the United States.
One of the most common statements repeated across sites was that investigators and prosecutors felt they
were “just scratching the surface” of the crimes that make up the underground commercial sex economy—
sex trafficking and prostitution. Stakeholders described feeling under-resourced to proactively investigate
and prosecute cases and stymied by public and criminal justice stakeholder misperceptions of the
prevalence and severity of these crimes. With those challenges, stakeholders were still able to bring an
impressive diversity of case types forward and have begun to peel back the layers to reveal the nature of
the UCSE.
Certain trends emerged across cities. Cases of child and adult sex trafficking and prostitution were
uncovered in all cities. Erotic Asian massage parlors and Latino brothels were found in the majority of
cities and all cities reported difficulty in determining the extent to which adult sex workers were
voluntarily employed in prostitution or victims of sex trafficking. While some cases of child sex trafficking
were uncovered in these venues, these cases were rare. Common across all cities, however, was the sex
trafficking of minors, often runaway youth, by street and Internet pimps.
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