Sponsored By. FARGO β A Fargo man is on a mission to expose local massage parlors for what he believes they are β fronts for commercial sex and human trafficking. Keith Coates, 26, said he visited four such parlors in the metro area, all with the same result β an unmistakable offer from the masseuse for a sexual service in exchange for money, which he declined each time.
In addition, he said he has what he believes is proof, in the form of a text message, that human trafficking is happening at one of the parlors. Moorhead police said they also couldn't comment. A report by the anti-trafficking group Polaris estimates more than 9, illicit massage businesses are hiding in plain sight in strip malls and along busy corridors in the U.
While some women at these businesses may choose to sell sex, the report says, evidence suggests many thousands of women engaging in commercial sex there are actually victims of human trafficking β being controlled through debts, psychological manipulation and threat of violence from their traffickers. According to Polaris, most trafficked women have recently arrived from China or South Korea and are under extreme financial pressure.
Since then, one in Moorhead has closed, while two new parlors have opened in Fargo, for a total of at least eight such establishments. This article is not naming any of the businesses or their owners because they have not been publicly implicated by authorities or criminally charged. During the visits last year, reporters found employees who spoke little to no English and requirements that customers pay up front to receive services.
Some offer a "table shower," where the customer is washed while lying down, a service not typical of other massage businesses. Coates said his concerns about trafficking were borne from a previous job at a local homeless shelter where he saw "very shady stuff. He later decided to become a massage therapist and enrolled in a local massage school. There, Coates said, he heard stories about illicit massage businesses in town, but doubted they were true. Coates said his first visit was to a Moorhead parlor a few years ago, and subsequent visits to other parlors, the most recent in Fargo in August, played out the same way.
