Sheriff: Korean women freed after bust of Seattle-area sex trafficking ring

The King County Sheriff’s Office say that 12 women, mostly from South Korea, were being trafficked in a prostitution ring that investigators busted this week.

The women are the victims in the case, said King County Sheriff John Urquhart at a press conference on Thursday, and investigators arrested 14 others in raids in King and Pierce counties. Several of the alleged brothels were in upscale apartments in downtown Bellevue. Investigators also took control of two websites that shared information on prostitution — thereviewboard.net and kgirldelights.com, according to reports.

According to Urquhart, the investigation began after a woman told investigators that she was taken from South Korea and forced into prostitution to pay off debts.

Three of the people arrested are allegedly brothel owners, according to news reports.

However, a group that says it advocates for voluntary prostitutes decried the seizure of the websites, saying the action removes a safe platform where sex workers could conduct business.

“The site was valuable to a lot of sex workers,” Capri Sunshine, a spokeswoman for the Sex Workers Outreach Project in a prepared statement. “It was free, undocumented workers without ID or credit cards could use it, and it was where most girls got the majority of their work. This has a lot of negative ramifications for sex workers.”

Read more

King 5: 12 women rescued in Puget Sound human trafficking bust

Seattle Times: Dozen arrested as large prostitution ring involving websites, Bellevue brothels shut down

KIRO TV: Police: Workers held against their will in Bellevue brothels

2 Comments

  1. This is exactly the same as so-called “Comfort Women” in Korea under World Wat II. Brokers who trafficked young women to have them work in brothels, and those operated the brothels are the “Bad Guys” then and now.

    1. This is nothing like the comfort women beyond them being Korean and your sick sexual fantasies.

      There was not fraud, rape or coercion. These women made $300,000 year and were exploited by the police that stole all their money.

      Stop the cheap stereotyping of their races to fulfill your own pathetic sexual fantasies.

      The treatment of Comfort Women was a war crime. How dare you conflate that with voluntary sex between adults. I find your bigotry and minimization of real victims in WWII dispicable.

Comments are closed.

2 Comments

  1. This is exactly the same as so-called “Comfort Women” in Korea under World Wat II. Brokers who trafficked young women to have them work in brothels, and those operated the brothels are the “Bad Guys” then and now.

    1. This is nothing like the comfort women beyond them being Korean and your sick sexual fantasies.

      There was not fraud, rape or coercion. These women made $300,000 year and were exploited by the police that stole all their money.

      Stop the cheap stereotyping of their races to fulfill your own pathetic sexual fantasies.

      The treatment of Comfort Women was a war crime. How dare you conflate that with voluntary sex between adults. I find your bigotry and minimization of real victims in WWII dispicable.

Comments are closed.