SAN FRANCISCO – A federal grand jury indicted 10 defendants for their alleged role in a large prostitution ring that recruited Asian women to work as prostitutes in about 40 brothels located throughout the Bay Area, federal officials said last week.
The defendants – Allen Fong, Ya Huai Hung, Leow Wan Ru Veron, Robert Chun, Jie Mu, Laurence Shu Kwan Lee, Kevin Hartig, Waylon Fong, Angelina Chuong, and Chonthicha Jaemratanasophin – are charged with several felonies:
- Conspiring to Conduct Enterprise Affairs Through a Pattern of Racketeering Activity
- Use of Facility in Interstate and Foreign Commerce to Promote Prostitution
- Laundering of Monetary Instruments; Importation of Aliens for an Immoral Purpose
- Transportation in Interstate and Foreign Commerce for Prostitution
According to the indictment, all 10 defendants are charged with Conspiracy to Conduct a Racketeering Enterprise for operating 40 brothels in the greater San Francisco Bay Area from at least August 2002 through July 2014.
This is how the enterprise allegedly worked:
- The Enterprise allegedly operated brothels in the cities of Pinole, San Mateo, Redwood City, Sunnyvale, Belmont, Fremont, Cupertino, Santa Clara, Foster City, San Bruno, Colma, and South San Francisco.
- Members and associates of the Enterprise solicited, enticed, and persuaded adult females, primarily from Asian countries, to work for the Enterprise as prostitutes in the Northern California.
- The Enterprise rented the apartments used as brothels through nominee lessees for limited periods of time, and then opened other brothels, often with overlapping rental periods.
- The Enterprise used social networking websites such as MyRedbook.com, Craigslist.org, and Backpage.com to post advertisements for prostitution services, which included contact information and photographs of nude and partially nude women assuming provocative and suggestive poses.
- The Enterprise’s telephone operators answered the calls for telephone numbers posted on the website advertisements for prostitution services, coordinated the meeting place between the prostitutes and their customers or “Johns”, and directed the “Johns” to a particular brothel.
- The prostitutes kept approximately two-thirds of their earnings from the “Johns” and paid one-third to the Enterprise, primarily through Allen Fong, the alleged ringleader of the Enterprise.
From at least March 4, 2004, through Oct. 3, 2013, members of the Enterprise sent numerous outgoing international wire transfers to Asian countries such as Singapore, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines, including to known Enterprise members and prostitutes, according to the indictment.
Enterprise members sent at least twenty-three international wire transfers, totaling $179,218.00, to Leow Wan Ru Veron, the Enterprise’s recruiter of prostitutes in Singapore, the indictment states.
Chonthicha Jaemratanasophin, an Enterprise prostitute, funded twenty international wire transfers, totaling $109,300.00, to Singapore and Thailand, the indictment alleges.