By Tim Clifford

Today the King County Sheriff’s Office working in conjunction with police departments in Burien, Seattle, Kent, and Snohomish County served warrants and shut-down 10 massage parlors accused of promoting prostitution. 5 of the businesses hit in this multi-department sting are located in Burien.
The operation was begun three months ago after a series of complaints from citizens and businesses throughout the city of Burien concerning the activities of numerous massage parlors and salons. Detectives began investigating the owners of the parlors and followed-up on connections these owners held with other parlors throughout the state.
Warrants were served to these establishments which were also then shut down pending further investigation.
During today’s sting nine arrests were made with three of those arrested being booked on charges of promoting prostitution. A press release from the KCSO predicted that more arrests would be forthcoming citing that charges of Promoting Prostitution will usually be accompanied with financial crimes.
While exact addresses and names of businesses are being withheld, here is the list of locations by block for the 5 businesses that were shut-down in Burien:

• 100 block of 1 Ave. S.
• 200 block of S.W. 152
• 13200 block of 1 Ave. S.
• 13600 block of 1 Ave. S.
• 15000 block of Ambaum Blvd. S.W.

“One thing that I would like to be careful about though is that at some of these addresses [13600 block of 1 Ave. S. and 15000 block of Ambaum Blvd. S.W.] there are legitimate businesses there and what was going on was happening in the back of them. One was a hair salon where the back portion of the building was being used and it’s unclear if that business was even involved. We are still investigating to what level of knowledge these owners really had of what was happening,” said KCSO Media Relations Officer D.B. Gates.
“I would really hate to see a legitimate business dragged through the mud if it turns out that they truly had no knowledge of what was going on” she continued.
Exploitation of immigrant workers by the owners of these businesses is explained as the root problem. The press release from KCSO goes on to detail how these operations get their start stating “many of the workers at these businesses are exploited by the owners via excessive fees levied against them for rent and other charges. This results in the employees never being able to get out of debt to the owners, trapping them in a never-ending cycle of victimization.”
Burien Police Chief Scott Kimerer called the operation’s success proof of the department’s “commitment to some of the most vulnerable people in our community that are repeatedly exploited by human traffickers”.
The King County Sheriff’s Office and Burien P.D. have both pledged to continue this investigation with more results hopefully to come in the following weeks.