Pennsylvania father and son 'tattooed women with bar codes and sent them to New York as prostitutes'



A father and son duo are facing charges of promoting prostitution through an elaborate ring that shipped prostitutes from Pennsylvania to New York where the pair arranged for black cab drivers to help arrange trysts.

Vincent George Sr., 55, and his son Vincent George Jr.,33, both of whom are based out of Allentown, Pennsylvania, were arrested earlier this month and now face their arraignment this week, which is supposed to detail a multi-decade scheme.

The prostitutes were tattooed with their pimp’s names and at least one had a bar code tattoo as a way to declare the men’s ‘ownership’ of the women.

The case has echoes of Spanish prostitutes who were tattooed with barcodes earlier this year as the practice appears to become more widespread.



Transportation: The father-son duo conspired with town car drivers, like this car, to ferry the prostitutes and find men to pay for services

One woman had a heart tattoo with ‘Vee’ written inside referring to the Vincent the father, while three other women had tattoos reading ‘King Koby’, the younger Vincent’s nickname.

This is not the first time- in either Manhattan or globally- that pimps have used demeaning tattoos.

On top of that, prosecutors told The New York Post that the elder George even used his own daughter as one of his prostitutes before pushing her to work for a different pimp.



The Georges were returning to Pennsylvania when they were arrested and had new women that they had just ‘enlisted’ for their team from Buffalo, New York.

Throughout their operation, the men, with the help of at least six black car drivers, ferried the women to and from Queens and Manhattan and kept tight control over them financially and emotionally.

The town car drivers talked up the prostitutes’ services and then arranged for their customers to meet with the women outside of strip clubs and on street corners.

Global trend: A prostitute in Madrid, Spain was found with a barcode tattoo like the one on the prostitute involved in the New York case

NBC New York estimates that the women could have earned up to $500,000 per year, the vast majority of which went directly to the pimps.

New York district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. released a statement about the conditions under which the women survived, as they were only allowed minimal amounts of profit from their trysts that cost anywhere from $200 to $500 per session.

‘As is typical in domestic sex trafficking cases, the trafficked victims were required to turn over all prostitution proceeds directly to their traffickers, who doled out only a few dollars a night to buy food and other necessities,’ Mr Vance wrote in the statement.

‘As a result, the women had no control over their finances, making prostituted victims essentially helpless if they were to attempt to leave the operation.’

The women lived in fear for their lives because the pimps supposedly threatened them if they did not turn up with sufficient cash quickly enough after meeting with their Johns.

At the same time, the Georges profited handsomely, buying a number of homes and a total of 10 cars.

The six drivers- Ausama Ahmad, 36, Qabari Gaber, 56, Theo Jones, 51, David Lombardo, 55, Assaf Nahomove, 40, and Sokol Perkaj, 51- were all charged with promoting prostitution and given bail.