Lee Rood

lrood@dmreg.com

In April, Ames police arrested Genmu Cheng, owner of a spa in North Grand Mall, for inappropriately touching two women who came in for massages.

A month later, they arrested two women — one for prostitution, the other for practicing without a license — at two other massage parlors after an undercover sting involving several state agencies.

Sgt. Mark Watson said charges related to human trafficking were expected after the May sting. But none was filed.

Widespread on both coasts, massage parlors have sprouted up across Iowa, triggering undercover stings, occasional arrests for prostitution, questions about zoning and licensing requirements, and concerns about human trafficking.

Some parlors appear to be legitimate businesses, law enforcement say. Like nail shops or bodegas, the parlors can be a pathway to financial stability for new immigrants, many from China. Others discreetly offer sex for money, though those transactions can be hard to catch.

Story County Attorney Jessica Reynolds said she was highly concerned about the possibility of human trafficking after the May sting. Ultimately, however, police found no evidence suggesting that's what took place. Xiao Zhang, the woman arrested for prostitution, was given a deferred judgment; Zemei Guo was fined for practicing without a license, she said.

"Can I rule human trafficking out completely?" Reynolds said. "No. But we lacked evidence."

George Belitsos, who chairs the nonprofit Iowa Network Against Human Trafficking, which includes a range of experts in human trafficking, said women often refuse to testify in suspected human trafficking cases.

“Traffickers sometimes claim that they are related to these women to get them into the country, and the women don’t want to be deported,” he said.

Des Moines identified as top 100 human trafficking site

Arrests for prostitution or for working without a massage license have been made in the past three years in Ames, Johnston, Marion, Mason City, the Quad Cities, Sioux City, Urbandale and West Des Moines.

Kellie Markey, founder of Dorothy’s House, a Des Moines rehabilitation house for women and girls recovering from human trafficking, said human trafficking of women who work at massage parlors is happening in every corner of the state. "It’s huge here in Des Moines," she said. "If you live in the metro, it’s happening within three miles of your front door.”

Markey said Iowa now has some of the best laws in the country to combat sex trafficking. Those convicted of buying or selling another person, including “johns” who patronize massage parlors for sex, must do mandatory jail time.

Perceptions of the scope of the problem are changing among law enforcement. But some police still have difficulty believing the women at local businesses could be part of an organized network, Markey said. When police do investigate, building cases can be difficult to do, requiring work after hours and across jurisdictions, she said.

“These people are very sophisticated,” Markey said. “They know how to elude law enforcement.”

Cause for concern, or 'honest place'?

This month, more than two dozen massage businesses in or near the metro advertised on Craigslist and Backpage.com, online sites sometimes used to promote prostitution. Suggestive ads on the sites feature photos of young Asian women, some scantily clad. Headlines say “very young Asian Gril (sic),” “magical four hands,” “New girl, new feeling,” “free table showers,” and “young girls, hot” with lip and heart emojis.

Councilman Chris Coleman said he sent emails to the Des Moines Police Department’s vice unit in October, asking anew for an investigation of Lotus Spa in the popular Beaverdale Place strip mall because several people had talked with him about it.

“I continue to think this is a dump, not good for the neighborhood, sketchy, and they advertise in a way that is nearing on illegal activity,” one of the emails he provided the Register said. “Not just prostitution, but many feel like these are a haven for human trafficking.”

A complaint about the spa was sent to the Iowa Board of Massage Therapy, which licenses massage therapists in the state. The complaint is scheduled to be discussed Dec. 6.

Chris Coleman said his brother, Tom Coleman, who owns a candy shop in the same retail plaza, also raised concerns with him.

Tom Coleman also called landlord Vista Real Estate. He said he regularly sees men entering the spa at night, some taking care to park far away from the Lotus storefront.

Tom Coleman said he's never once seen a woman enter the business in the 13 months it's been open.

"I can't imagine anything that goes on between those walls is healthy for the Beaverdale community," Tom Coleman said.

Semi-retired attorney Patricia Hulting also raised concerns about Lotus Massage to the Reader's Watchdog. Hulting, who used to work for the Iowa Attorney General’s Office as a deputy attorney general, said she wanted to know if the young women working in the shop were there by choice.

“I don't care about paying for sex, but I do care whether the women involved are willing participants,” Hulting wrote. “I am not willing to believe that beautiful young Asian women are flocking to Des Moines to work for out-of-state owners of massage parlors on their own volition.”

Lotus Spa advertises online it's bringing in “New girls from Vegas” to the strip mall, where Hulting had an office for eight years.

But Feng Huai, who owns the Lotus Spa with her husband, said the business, offering massages for both men and women, is legitimate. In broken English, she said she came to the U.S. with her husband four and a half years ago at the urging of another friend from China. Huai said she started doing massage in Texas and came to Iowa when the couple had the opportunity to start their own business.

Huai said two young women who work for her have American boyfriends, who pick them up at night. She said she and her husband didn't place the advertising.

"Some men is good. Some men is no good," she said. Those looking for sex are turned away, she said.

Huai and her husband sometimes receive assistance in communicating and help around the business from Mark Sharp, a regular customer from Promise City, an hour and a half from Des Moines in southern Iowa. Sharp said he found the spa after suffering a broken ankle. He said he’s never seen anyone offered sex at the business.

“They are very good people,” said Sharp, who also said he has received free massages for his help. “There’s nothing wrong. This is an honest place.”

Huai and her husband last week also took over ownership of Green Massage, in the 4200 block of Douglas Avenue, housed in a strip mall next to a Pizza Hut satellite, pet store and Chinese restaurant. The previous owners, who called the business Phoenix Massage, triggered complaints to council members from neighbors who said men seeking massages were frequenting the strip mall.

Police have received calls from people concerned about prostitution at a massage business at 4921 Douglas Ave., according to police reports.

But Des Moines police said they have followed up on complaints, but thus far have made no arrests.

“I can’t speculate on whether this would be considered human or sex trafficking as we don’t have any concrete evidence that there is illegal activity taking place,” Sgt. Paul Parizek said. “The employees at these establishments have never offered ‘happy endings’ during our investigations.”

Des Moines neighbors wary

Over on Hull Avenue, not far from Grand View University, neighbors say they've been watching men driving cars with license plates from around Iowa entering the curtained storefront at Asian Tuina from early in the morning until late at night.

The humble gray building doesn’t advertise much on the outside, mentioning acupressure and reflexology. Search Craigslist or Backpage, however, and its listings say "New pretty girls coming soon" and "free table showers." Photos show women dressed in high heels, lingerie and thongs. Inside, a row of small massage stalls fills a main room, each covered with curtains.

Some neighbors said they have called police, complaining women are being moved into the business and then moved out every few weeks.

Janae Daniels, a frustrated mother of two who works nearby, hung up fliers with rates she'd heard were being charged for sex acts — her way of trying to shame those running the business.

“There are two schools right in this neighborhood,” the mother of a 4- and 7-year-old said. “What if one gets curious and sees something?”

Not far from Lincoln High School, another Asian Tuina sits behind a liquor store at 2424 S.W. Ninth St. It advertised online “the best tuina you can have after a hard days (sic) work.”

Tuina, also called Tui Na, is a legitimate manipulative therapy of the body joints. Following stings in Iowa, some women arrested in massage parlors have contended they did not need a license to practice Tui Na. To date, the Board of Massage Therapy has not weighed in on whether Tui Na is within the scope of massage therapy practice accepted under Iowa law.

That board has no prosecutorial authority when it comes to prostitution or complaints of human trafficking, but it does forward concerns about potential crimes to law enforcement. Five referrals to local county attorneys were made in the past year in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Mason City, Sioux City and Des Moines.

The Des Moines referral, about Paradise Spa, 4921 Douglas Ave., alleged unlicensed activity in 2015, but the parlor remains open and posted ads this month saying "New Girl, New Feeling" and "She Cares For You Right from Stressed Out Start to Smiling Finish ❤."

Polk County Attorney John Sarcone did not return a phone call seeking a comment about the referral to his office.

Snolin Spa, which advertises that it opened in the past month, sits in the same building as the College of Massage Therapy and Healing Arts, at 37th Street and Douglas Avenue.

Neighbors said a massage business has been open there longer, however. They've noticed clothes drying in the wind in the back and smelled food cooking inside.

Deb Elliott, owner of the massage therapy school since 1996, said she tried to get a massage at the business to see if workers really knew therapeutic massage and said a woman working there referred her to her own school. Elliott said the massage school has been getting more calls from people who are clearly seeking sex services, not therapeutic massage. She said she’s talked to police and city officials.

“I’m very concerned about the situation,” she said. “I’m also very concerned about how the massage therapy profession is perceived in the community.”

When I visited the spa last week to talk about neighbors' concerns, a woman working there said she didn't speak English. She pointed upwards, encouraging me to go upstairs to the massage school, which is not affiliated with the Snolin Spa.

Councilman Bill Gray said the presence of at least four relatively new massage businesses in Beaverdale troubles his constituents.

"We need someone to start cleaning house," Gray said. "Where there's smoke, there's fire. This is creating problems, and business people in the area are upset."

But he acknowledged it would be difficult for city officials to initiate zoning changes that would weed out illicit massage businesses from commercial areas without affecting legitimate massage therapists, who have the right to operate.

Where to call for help

If you suspect someone is the victim of human trafficking, you can call local law enforcement or the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888. The center takes calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in more than 200 languages. Its mission is to connect victims and survivors to support and services to get help and stay safe, and to equip the anti-trafficking community with the tools to combat all forms of human trafficking.

For those arrested, light consequences

Thus far in Iowa, those responsible for having unlicensed employees or prostitution have not faced serious consequences.

One of the first arrests to make recent headlines came in May 2013, when several law enforcement agencies, including federal Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, swooped in to search a nail shop and the Asian Massage Parlor in Dubuque. Yihan Wang, 53, a Chinese national, was arrested and charged with prostitution. Wang served some jail time but never paid her fine, court records show.

In October 2013, Johnston police conducted a sting at 5429 Merle Hay Road in which Chinese national Fengzhen Wei, 53, allegedly sexually fondled an undercover officer. Wei was charged with prostitution. Fellow workers Haixin Liu, 53, and Jinfeng Qin, 54, were charged with operating the massage business without a proper license. But the prostitution charge was eventually dropped, and Wei was convicted only of operating the business without a license. In April 2015, Wei failed to show for a probation hearing. Liu, who was convicted of running a “house of ill fame” under a local ordinance, was fined $65 and has moved out of state, according to her attorney, Bob Rigg. The case against Qin was dropped.

In December 2013, Marion police performed a sting on two massage parlors, resulting in four arrests, after an informant told them sex acts were exchanged for money. City officials eventually revoked the public amusement licenses of Asian Massage and Massage Heaven after women involved pleaded guilty to running a disorderly house.



In February this year, a worker at a Mason City massage business called Asian Body Work was charged with prostitution. Employee Suling Lu, 48, was arrested on one count of misdemeanor prostitution. She was found guilty but given probation and a deferred judgment.

Des Moines identified as top 100 human trafficking site

Des Moines has been identified by a national anti-human trafficking organization as one of the country's top 100 sites for suspected massage-related trafficking.

Washington, D.C.-based Polaris began a national initiative in January to crack down on illicit massage businesses, including six raided last month in Indianapolis.

Polaris identified Des Moines in the top 100 locales by scraping data from paid online sites, where customers review sex workers. It found eight locations in the city, according to Rochelle Keyhan, who is directing the national effort.

"We found 45 (locations) in Iowa and eight in Des Moines," she said. "Those are conservative estimates. Law enforcement typically identifies 150 to 200 percent more than our initial numbers."

Keyhan said many massage workers trafficked in the U.S. originally come from China or Korea, and are shipped across the country from entry points on the coasts, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.

Talking about being forced into sex work is considered culturally taboo for most of the workers, she said. Polaris is trying to help shift the focus of law enforcement probes from low-level stings to organized crime investigations.

"People think these women are choosing this work, but they're not," Keyhan said. "Many of the women have been forced into mandatory retirement in China, and have no income and no means of surviving."

Polaris is working with law enforcement and government officials to help them recognize that traffickers often blend in next door to legitimate businesses.

"Many victims are recruited with promises of employment. However, when they arrive they are controlled by means of debts, threats of violence, blackmail, confinement, psychological manipulation, and in some cases, physical violence," the organization says. "Almost every aspect of their life is controlled — where they live, what they eat, where they go, what they look like and who they are allowed to talk to."

According to research at Rutgers University, the exotic massage industry in the U.S. could be doing as much as $1 billion in business a year.

Yet Iowa’s U.S. attorney offices in Des Moines or Davenport have not prosecuted a human trafficking case tied to massage parlors, a spokeswoman confirmed.

A top state law enforcement official said federal authorities have been contacted about activity at some massage parlors. But he acknowledged that until recently the state did not have the structure in place to address the wider concerns about human trafficking at the businesses.

Jim Saunders, who heads investigative operations for the Iowa Department of Public Safety, said local law enforcement agencies largely investigated complaints about massage parlors in their jurisdictions. Authorities suspect some parlors are linked to human trafficking networks, but those types of probes take time, he said.

State leaders this year established a central human trafficking office in the public safety department to quantify the problem, share intelligence and offer training to combat the crime, he said.

“We know it’s there. FBI and Homeland Security have been given leads,” he said. “But these really are complicated cases. These people are very adept at what they’re doing. And they are very good at making an illegitimate business look legitimate.”

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office this summer also hired a new coordinator for the state’s human trafficking efforts.

Belitsos said massage parlors promise to be raised as a concern at a human trafficking conference Thursday in Cedar Rapids.

Iowa legislators have passed legislation allowing trafficked youth to avoid delinquency prosecution. Some in the human trafficking network also want immunity for adult victims.

The human trafficking network also is supporting reintroduction of state legislation known as Erin’s Law, a measure passed in 26 other states that teaches youth about sexual exploitation and abuse. School districts have resisted the effort, saying they already have full curricula.

Some lawmakers, meanwhile, want more focus on the problem by law enforcement.

“I think we’ve been a little blind to human trafficking in Iowa, both sexual and for labor,” said state Rep. Marti Anderson, a Democrat from Des Moines who used to head the Crime Victims Assistance Division at the Iowa Attorney General’s Office. “But if we don’t look at it, it will just keep growing.”