BEAVER COUNTY, Pa. — Channel 11 has learned exclusively that law enforcement in Beaver County raided four massage parlors simultaneously on Thursday.
Only our cameras were at each location: Moonlit Spa and Wen’s Bodywork in Baden, Chinese Massage Therapy in Hopewell and Merchant Street Body Works in Ambridge.
District Attorney Nate Bible is calling it a coordinated effort to crack down on human trafficking in the county.
Witnesses tell Channel 11 that women were removed from the Hopewell and Ambridge locations.
“Ultimately, a lot of the women in these establishments are trafficking victims,” Bible said.
In Baden, the two parlors are just half a mile from each other on State Street.
“The regional police department received countless complaints of illicit activities going on in these massage parlors,” Chief Mike Priolo of Beaver Valley Regional Police said.
Baden councilman John Shelkons told Channel 11 the parlors have been the subject of a lot of talk in the borough.
“Are these people illegals? Are they being trafficked? Is it just a matter of what’s going on there? There’s a lot of things you don’t know,” he said.
According to the DA, I.C.E. was involved but only to help identify people. He says most were here legally or on work visas. He doesn’t believe anyone was detained.
We did see items like massage tables being loaded into U-Haul trucks and taken away. Bible says the four businesses are not owned by the same person but are related.
“We do believe there is a connection - maybe a larger connection that reaches outside of this county,” he said.
While most of the victims are women, there are others, too.
“I can tell you at one location we believe there [were] children. That’s certainly something that concerns us,” Bible said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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