SOUTHFIELD (WWJ) – Four people have been arrested in connection with the bust of an alleged opioid and human trafficking operation in Macomb and Oakland counties.

The Michigan Attorney General’s Office says 38-year-old Melvin Niblett , 45-year-old Corey Cooper, 57-year-old Maurice Rushton and 27-year-old Jasmin McGinnis, sold sex and drugs out of hotels around southeast Michigan.

Andrea Bitely with the AG’s office says the suspects also drugged their victims.

“If you are out high on heroin or other opioids you don’t always know what is going on; and we are seeing this more and more frequently — that traffickers are using drugs to prevent their victims from escaping, essentially,” said Bitely. “Holding them in this dark world of human trafficking.”

“This is a really sad example of one of the ways that human traffickers are keeping their victims, keeping their women in this case, hostage, essentially. They’re keeping their victims high and unable to fight back.”

Three out of four have been arraigned. They face a total of 24 felony charges between them, including conducting a criminal enterprise, intent to deliver heroin and cocaine or other narcotics, forced labor services involving commercial sex and accepting earnings from prostitution.

“These traffickers of drugs and sex need to take notice – it will no longer be business as usual in Michigan,” said AG Bill Schuette, in a statement. “I would like to thank the law enforcement officers from Oakland and Macomb Counties, as well as our federal partners at the FBI for their hard work on this case.”