Five more people were convicted in Minneapolis Wednesday for their role in a huge sex trafficking operation involving women from Thailand.
U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald described the case as one of the largest trafficking networks ever dismantled at the federal level.
“Sex trafficking is an industry that is built on supply and demand, and this organization fed that industry,” MacDonald said after the court proceedings. “It exploited, it abused, enslaved and sold women in response to the high demand for commercial sex that exists not only in the United States but here in Minnesota.”
The defendants were Michael Morris, 65, of Seal Beach, California; Pawinee Unpradit, 46, of Dallas; Saowapha Thinram, 44, of Hutto, Texas; Thoucharin Ruttanamongkongul, 35, of Chicago; and Waralee Wanless, 39, of Colony, Texas.
During the six-week trial, prosecutors accused the defendants of running a sex trafficking operation that lasted more than a decade and crossed international borders with 34 co-conspirators, who pleaded guilty in earlier proceedings.
As proven at trial, this criminal organization compelled hundreds of women from Bangkok, Thailand, to engage in commercial sex acts in various cities across the United States, including Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Houston, Dallas, Seattle and Austin.
Jurors returned their verdict barely a day after receiving the case.
Two waves of defendants from across the country were charged in the case, beginning in October 2016 and again in May 2017. All pleaded guilty to avoid trial except for the five who were recently convicted.
Prosecutors described the case as “modern-day sex slavery” and argued that the defendants forced Thai women to work long hours having sex with multiple men daily to pay off “bondage debts” owed to traffickers for help coming to the United States. Prosecutors said victims, some of whom testified during the trial, were misled as to how much they truly owed and were threatened if they tried to leave the business.
The trafficking victims were often from impoverished backgrounds and spoke little or no English. They were coerced to participate in the criminal scheme through misleading promises of a better life in the United States and the ability to provide money to their families in Thailand.
Once in the United States, the victims were sent to houses of prostitution where they were forced to have sex with strangers – every day – for up to 12 hours a day, at times having sex with 10 men a day, said the prosecutors. The victims were isolated from the outside world. They were not allowed to leave the houses of prostitution unless accompanied by a member of the criminal organization. The victims moved around the United States between houses of prostitution in multiple cities. They and their families in Thailand were threatened.
The operation dealt primarily in cash and used it’s international connections to launder millions of dollars.
“The defendants convicted participated in a massive yet brutally efficient criminal enterprise that trafficked hundreds of vulnerable Thai women for sexual exploitation and used sophisticated money laundering techniques to conceal and sustain itself,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
To date, investigators have been able to recover $1.5 million in cash and $15 million in money judgments secured through plea agreements. During the extensive investigation, law enforcement traced tens of millions of dollars to the organization. Indeed, at trial, there was testimony that more than $40 million was sent to Thailand by one money launderer alone.
“We feel pretty confident that based on the number of important-position folks we are taking down, we’ll really hurt this organization,” said Alex Khu, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Minneapolis. “It will take down this ring.”
BACKGROUNDER
For traffickers, Thailand is a land of opportunity. Trafficking in this tourist hotspot is a roughly $12 billion industry — a bigger cash earner than the country’s drug trade, according to the International Labor Organization.
Thailand has climbed to an eight-year high, earning a Tier 2 ranking in the latest US Trafficking in Person (TIP) report launched by the US State Department. Tier 3 being the lowest rating.
While many are heartened by the Thai government’s success, a labor rights advocate notes that there is still room for improvement, especially concerning corruption and the victim screening process.
An annual State Dept. report. “Trafficking in Persons Report 2018,” released last summer in Washington, said that the Thai government had demonstrated increased efforts to address slavery and human trafficking.
Increased prosecutions, convictions of traffickers and a decrease in prosecution time for trafficking cases through the use of a specialized anti-trafficking law enforcement division were positively cited in the report.
Five defendants were convicted yesterday by a federal jury for their roles in operating a massive international sex trafficking organization that was responsible for coercing hundreds of Thai women to engage in commercial sex acts across the United States.
Michael Morris, 65, of Seal Beach, California; Pawinee Unpradit, 46, of Dallas, Texas; Saowapha Thinram, 44, of Hutto, Texas; Thoucharin Ruttanamongkongul, 35, of Chicago Illinois; and Waralee Wanless, 39, of The Colony, Texas, were convicted following a six-week trial before Senior Judge Donovan Frank in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minnesota. Thirty-one defendants previously pleaded guilty for their roles in the sex trafficking organization.
Michael Morris, 65, of Seal Beach, California; Pawinee Unpradit, 46, of Dallas, Texas; Saowapha Thinram, 44, of Hutto, Texas; Thoucharin Ruttanamongkongul, 35, of Chicago Illinois; and Waralee Wanless, 39, of The Colony, Texas, were convicted following a six-week trial before Senior Judge Donovan Frank in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minnesota. Thirty-one defendants previously pleaded guilty for their roles in the sex trafficking organization.
“More than two years ago, my office filed the first federal indictment against a criminal organization that relied on the sexual exploitation of women for their own financial gain,” said U.S. Attorney MacDonald. “Since then, our team of prosecutors and investigators systematically dismantled the organization, while seeking justice for every victim of this organization. The process has been long, but today’s guilty verdict represents both a successful and just outcome. While our work combatting human trafficking continues, this case stands as a powerful example of the Department of Justice’s commitment to achieving justice for victims. I applaud our law enforcement partners for the remarkable dedication and collaboration they have demonstrated throughout this process.”