413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

actually go to them to find you what the assets are until you're really, really ready. (Dallas
Law Enforcement Officials)
Similar to street/Internet pimps, massage parlor owners have also been found to use Green Dot cards to
transfer money. In addition to hiding assets, some massage parlor owners in Dallas have recently named
their businesses “relaxation centers” in an attempt to avoid law enforcement detection as unlicensed
massage parlors and fronts for sex trafficking or prostitution. They have also moved into strip malls with
legitimate businesses, in an effort to look more legitimate. Despite these tactics, Dallas’s massage parlors
were operating most blatantly as illegitimate businesses when compared to massage parlors in the other
cities included in this study. In other cities, massage parlor owners would produce fake business licenses
and conceal the nature of the activity in the massage parlor, whereas in Dallas, they blatantly advertise
that they are unlicensed.
Massage parlors operating as fronts for sex work and/or sex trafficking are linked in various ways to other
types of crime in Dallas. The most obvious links to other forms of crime include money laundering, tax
evasion, and fraud. There have been no cases uncovered linking massage parlors with weapons trafficking.
However, drug sales/trafficking has been uncovered in some massage parlors. The only link between
gangs and massage parlors uncovered in Dallas is that some gang members may also be massage parlor
clients. In terms of massage parlor clients, one law enforcement official did note some overlap with
consumers of child pornography:
With a lot of child pornography, sometimes you have some of the same participants going
to the massage parlors because they are sometimes so addicted to the child pornography
that to have their needs met they have to go somewhere else and they have to hit either
the street prostitute or the massage parlor because they don’t devote their time to going
out and meeting actual people. And the thing is, if they can find someone in a massage
parlor that looks at least like they are younger than they are actually supposed to be, then
sometimes that fits the bill. (Dallas Law Enforcement Official)
Some massage parlor clients have also been found to be networked through online message boards where
clients publicly rate or review the women working in the massage parlors, the services provided, and the
pricing.
Although Asian massage parlor owners typically operate in closed ethnic networks, there was a case where
one Asian massage parlor owner was renting rooms out to a non-Asian pimp to place the women that
worked for him. In this case, the Asian female massage parlor owner operated four to five massage parlors
in Dallas where the sex workers also lived. The owner started to franchise her business and sold the
business to a pimp for $250,000 plus a percentage of the profits earned. Law enforcement took down the
operation and seized $1,000,000 in business properties, $180,000 from her home, and $40,000 to
$50,000 in jewelry, and vehicles including a Hummer, cargo van, and a leased Mercedes. These assets
totaled to$1.2 to $1.5 million.
Also unique to Dallas is that law enforcement has uncovered the involvement of Hispanic men and
women as massage parlor owners and women involved voluntarily in sex work. Law enforcement has
noticed a trend of these women coming from Honduras on B1 visitor visas, working in prostitution in
massage parlors in Dallas for a short time, and then returning home. However, non-Asian operated
massage parlors were much rarer and less highly organized than Asian-run massage parlors operating as
fronts for prostitution and/or sex trafficking.
Topless Bars
According to law enforcement, topless bars are another venue in which sex work is known to occur and
sex trafficking has yet to be found. Sex work in topless bars is an example of the overlap between the
lawful and underground commercial sex economies, as they are technically legal and licensed
establishments. In Dallas, topless bars are typically run by Russian individuals. While police have received
complaints about prostitution at these establishments, they have sometimes been unfounded. However,
one officer acknowledged how a lack of diversity within the police department may hamper their ability to
investigate:
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