The victimless crime strikes again

Man Faces Federal Charges in a Sex Ring in Minnesota:

41-year-old Liqing Liu, a Chinese national living in Minnesota, is facing federal charges of transporting women across state lines to engage in prostitution. He ran several massage parlors, some of which that advertised on craigslist, with women that were basically slaves to him…

Sgt. Grant Snyder of the Minneapolis Police Department, a lead investigator, said the women, all Chinese or Korean, were prohibited from leaving the place of business, kept under video surveillance, and had their passports and other forms of identification confiscated.

The women’s poverty, language barriers and immigration status were used against them, Sergeant Snyder said, and the authorities said they were treating the women as crime victims and not criminals.

The authorities described the patrons as mostly white upper-middle class men between 35 and 55, including doctors and business owners. They usually paid $80 a session, which the prostitutes were obligated to hand over to Mr. Liu, the police said.

The women could negotiate with customers for more money, the police said, but their earnings were marginal at best; one illegal South Korean immigrant mentioned in the criminal complaint had to pay Mr. Liu $40 a day for room and board. He booked her airfare, later deducting it from her prostitution wages, the police said.

Even if prostitution was legal there would still be scumbags like Liu forcing women like these into sex slavery.