Oakland County cracking down on illicit massage businesses

Tonight at six, law enforcement cracking down on human trafficking in Oakland County. Now a mother and son are facing charges. Fox News' Amy Lang, live in Pontiac, outside the prosecutor's office with more. Amy. Well, the prosecutor and this task force talking today about shutting down these illicit massage parlors. These are places that you might drive by or pass by every day. They're usually in a strip mall, maybe they're next to the place you go grab takeout pizza. They're pretty common, they're not all illicit, some are just fine. In this case, they've been using nuisance abatement laws, going to different communities, trying to get these places shut down. Last month, however, they had to raid two of them, one in Commerce Township, one in Novi. And they say they arrested a mother and son who were bringing women here from China for sex trafficking. Women are brought here to this country in false pretenses in many of these cases. They are cut off from their families and friends. They're made to live in these businesses, which are rarely zoned or allowed for residential living and perform sex work. Many times this is intertwined with other crimes. Thank you very much. Prostitution, assault, robbery, drug offenses, weapon offenses. It's happening all over. We've seen it with high school girls and we've seen it with all ages. And what I think collectively we want to do is to hold the people that are profiting from really the modern day slavery and hold them accountable. So right now they're trying to hold accountable 54-year-old Minnie Wu and her son, 28-year-old Ruzi Wu. They're now charged with conducting a criminal enterprise, human trafficking, maintaining house of prostitution, money laundering, and false tax returns. Investigators raided Commerce Massage and Novi Natural Health and Massage. At one location, they found, they say, one of the women, the workers there, naked with a customer. They also raided the homes of these and found nearly $50,000 in cash and rooms constructed in the basement to house multiple workers. Investigators in this case were able to recover cash, gold bars, jewelry, business and financial records, electronic devices, and workers' passports. Thank you. Mini-Wu also faces a charge of second-degree criminal sexual assault for assaulting an undercover police officer. We are going to hold you responsible, and hopefully we're going to shut you down. So that's their promise. They want to shut these places down and they need the public's help to do it. Those tips that come in, that's what led them to this particular operation. And these don't always happen in these massage parlors, sometimes things happen in hotels and homes, etc. But they really want people to know that if you suspect something, if you see somebody, a vulnerable individual, you see something that's just not quite right, that you do go ahead and call the tip line. That's 248-858-0411. And they say they can make all the difference. And you know they also stress that these customers who are having sex with these people, you know they could be prosecuted as well. And they're trying to help these people, these women who oftentimes are, you know as soon as anyone realizes something is going on, that they may have been found out, they're being moved to another location. So they say this is really a challenge, but they are trying to expand this and really committed to working on this whole system sex trafficking issue, this human trafficking issue. They say Michigan now ranks like seventh in the nation, and it's not something to be proud of. Yeah, I know. For now, live in Pontiac, I'm Amy Lang. Amy Lang, back to you. A lot going on there. All right, Amy Lang, thank you for that report.