Chinese-owned massage parlors targeted in sex trafficking sting across 19 states: Operation Coast to Coast

The joint action dubbed Operation Coast to Coast involved 19 states and more than 150 law enforcement agencies. Authorities raided Chinese-owned illicit massage parlors, which officials said were an organized crime ring contributing to the nation's $5 billion per year sex trafficking industry, Blaze News reported.

The operation was coordinated by Dan Nash, a retired Missouri state trooper and founder of the Human Trafficking Training Center (HTTC). He informed the outlet that the mission's objectives were to identify victims of sex trafficking, apprehend traffickers, and exchange intelligence.

"In California and New York, they have more illicit massage businesses than they do Starbucks and McDonald's combined," Nash said, explaining that he has used his 27-year law enforcement expertise to train thousands of officers across the country in tackling the sex trafficking trade.

"Most people think that the police officers are trained, but they're not. They don't get this kind of training," Nash explained, expressing the importance of his organization's training programs. "We've not been giving our law enforcement officers the tools that they need to battle trafficking, and that's why trafficking continues to increase," he told Blaze News.

Nash explained that the operations are exclusive for agencies that have participated in HTTC's training programs, as agencies often arrest the victims for prostitution. "Part of our training is explaining to law enforcement that these actually are victims, showing them why they are victims, showing them about the forced criminality component that is taking place and how to actually get to the trafficker when they find these victims," he said. "We know the academic research is very, very clear, both in Europe [and] in the United States, that some 90 percent to 93 percent of all persons involved in commercial sex are actually being trafficked or under third-party control."

Additionally, Nash told Blaze News that the Chinese organized crime syndicates are "the fastest growing in all of America." He stated that these groups operate 19,000 of the illicit massage parlors operating in the country. There has been a 32 percent increase in parlors over the past three years, he said. Nash explained that the goal of Thursday's operation was to shut down 50 to 100 illicit massage parlors and rescue victims. He partly attributed the increase in illegal activity to former President Biden's open-border policies, saying that many of the victims are trafficked into the United States.

Kristi Wells, CEO of the Safe House Project, a national organization that provides emergency support services for sex trafficking victims, expressed the importance of supporting the nonprofit, saying that 80 percent of victims experience revictimization. She told Blaze News that Operation Coast to Coast has opened an "opportunity to send this clear message to traffickers that this crime isn't going to be tolerated in our community."

Wells emphasized some of the challenges that victims face, such as not being able to speak English, a lack of immigration paperwork, and the possibility of being coerced into drug addiction.

"All of them have experienced a horrific trauma that takes therapy and healing to recover and to rebuild life anew," Wells told Blaze News. "Our team does a beautiful job of building trust with that survivor and communicating with them and finding translators and working to give them choice, which is the thing that has been robbed from them."

Operation Coast to Coast has conducted several similar operations after its 2024 inception.