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But a review by the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism Team found the operations in the county resulted in charges mostly against spa workers — the apparent victims of the trafficking — and not the ring's leaders.

Prosecutors filed only minor charges against the workers — many of which were later dismissed — and the efforts failed to shut down several businesses for months.

It’s but one example of a national trend identified in a sweeping Lee Public Service Journalism Team investigation showing victims of human trafficking are often the only ones held accountable for the crimes — that is, if law enforcement takes any action at all.

Advocates against human trafficking criticized Chesterfield police for arresting the victims instead of the perpetrators of trafficking. It’s a problem Chesterfield officials acknowledge.

In 2024, Chesterfield police arrested 21 women working at 13 massage parlors across the county. Police said the women were illegally selling sexual services to customers as part of a broader sex trafficking scheme.

But prosecutors filed no charges for human trafficking or any other felony in those cases and instead filed only misdemeanor charges against the spa workers and one woman who is listed as owner of one of the spas. Many of those charges were later dropped or dismissed, and at least three businesses remained open.

Of the 21 spa workers arrested, prosecutors never charged three women. In nine other cases, the women had their charges either dropped or dismissed. Five workers pleaded guilty only to minor permit or license violations. One worker pleaded guilty to prostitution. She paid a $100 fine plus court costs.

Only one case resulted in a conviction on a single charge of prostitution. That woman, a Chinese immigrant who owned two of the raided businesses, was given a 30-day suspended jail sentence.

Of the two cases still pending, none involve felony charges.

There are an estimated 16,800 illicit massage parlors nationwide, outnumbering McDonald's restaurants. However, a Lee Enterprises investigation found that few jurisdictions are doing anything to protect the women working in these parlors from being exploited.

Advocates argue that arresting these women is an outdated and ineffective approach. Often, the women simply move to a new location and learn to fear law enforcement.

“Chesterfield County is arresting a bunch of victims and calling it a massage parlor shut down. That's ridiculous,� said Rochelle Keyhan, who used to prosecute sex traffickers in Philadelphia and now trains police on the practical methods for shutting these businesses down. “That's almost, in my opinion, the opposite of enforcement because what you just did was empower all of the traffickers and further disempower the victims, and it would have been better if you did nothing.�

Law enforcement officials in cities such as Waco, Texas and Denver have made more successful efforts to shut down illicit massage parlors by arresting wealthy business owners rather than victims. Officials were even able to secure stiff prison sentences in some cases.

But those are exceptions to the rule.

“The old-school methodology of doing (stings) would be to arrest everybody for prostitution and lock them up, and then call it a day,� said Joseph Scaramucchi, who led the investigation of massage parlors in Waco. “The problem with that is, it’s not going to close the business down, right? The owner is not paying the piper for anything.�

Scaramucchi’s department focused on pursuing racketeering and money laundering charges against business owners. That process yielded more severe sentences for traffickers compared to typical prostitution-related charges.

One Chesterfield vice and narcotics detective, Jonathan Lombardo, acknowledged that arresting victims doesn't stop trafficking.

“It’s a lot of times a game of Whack-a-Mole,� Lombardo said. “We’ll shut one down, they’ll pop back up, or that same one will be open with a new owner.�

‘Global’ ring behind trafficking, police say

Much of the nation’s commercial sex trafficking is tied to a multinational organized crime ring with a “global� presence, according to Lombardo, who is also a member of Virginia’s and the FBI’s human trafficking task forces.

The network exploits Chinese women saddled with debt who come to the U.S. — often through Flushing, New York. These women usually pay brokers tens of thousands of dollars for visas and airline tickets and arrive in the U.S. with limited English skills and few work options. Misleading ads entice women to work in illegal massage parlors.

“More often than not, what we found there's always somebody bigger, not just the person running the actual day-to-day business,� Lombardo said. “There's always somebody behind that.

“It is so complex that it makes what most people think of when they think of organized crime look … simple.�

But there were no human trafficking charges filed in Chesterfield last year. Only one person was arrested in Chesterfield for human trafficking, according to data from Virginia State Police. That arrest was unrelated to the massage parlor arrests, and no charges were filed against that person.

The lack of human trafficking charges is a problem nationwide.

FBI data from local police departments show that only seven percent of human trafficking offenses led to arrests from 2021 to 2023 — 1,344 arrests for 19,225 reported offenses.

Chesterfield police said they lack the resources to crack down on organized crime because these complex cases cross jurisdictional boundaries. Lombardo said the few successful prosecutions in other cities have required federal assistance.

“Most of the problems we run into are we work for a local agency in a state, and very few times are anybody higher up actually doing anything in Virginia,� meaning that those involved in organized crime don’t put their names on any local businesses, he said. “To build that larger case requires a lot more than a local agency can often do by themselves.�

Police in other jurisdictions have the same problem. Doug Gilmer, a former HSI investigator, said the FBI has stopped investigating illicit massage parlors, leaving the labor-intensive, painstaking work to the Department of Homeland Security. The agency can only handle so many cases.

Fearful victims often won’t cooperate

A key reason for the lack of trafficking prosecutions related to illicit massage parlors is that the victims often don’t cooperate with police.

In Chesterfield, most — if not all — of the women who were arrested were victims. Ed Pierpont, lieutenant of Chesterfield police’s special investigations unit, said the ultimate goal isn’t to punish victims of trafficking.

“If the person is actually a victim of sex trafficking or labor trafficking, … that kind of negates the prosecutorial piece because we start focusing on how we can help them,� he said.

So why charge victims in the first place? Lombardo explained that the hope is that the charges convince the women to identify traffickers.

“First and foremost, (we) recognize that these people might be victims,� Lombardo said — which means they will receive help regardless of whether they share information.

“But I think we would be remiss if we just looked at that. Our whole goal is to climb the ladder (and) use this person below to get to the next level.�

Women arrested in the Chesterfield County massage parlor crackdown were sent to a nonprofit victims’ organization called Safe Harbor for assistance. Even Safe Harbor employees are conflicted about whether arresting the women is a good idea.

“We really don't want the people that are getting essentially used and abused to get criminal records,� said Anne Lee Dabney, who worked directly with the women in Chesterfield. “I mean, that's just not going to be helpful for them, right?�

For some women being trafficked, the counseling is effective. But women from China face unique challenges, Dabney said, because they are dealing with organized crime, cultural issues and fear of law enforcement.

“My hesitancy is, I don't want anything on their record to affect them,� Dabney said. “There's a lot of shame that comes with that.�

Dabney said when the trafficking victims’ photos are released by law enforcement and splashed in the news, screenshots get back to friends and family in China on the social media app WeChat, and it can be very shameful.

Police acknowledged that sending the women to Safe Harbor didn’t lead to them cooperating with the investigation.

“Very rarely do these women … open up,� Piepont said. There are many reasons for that. They may fear retaliation by their traffickers, he said, and they may distrust law enforcement.

Catherine Gray, assistant commonwealth’s attorney for Chesterfield, attributed the lack of local trafficking charges to that fear and distrust.

“The goal is to build cases against the people who are bringing the women here,� Gray told The Richmond Times-Dispatch. “We’d like to start moving up the chain and identifying traffickers.

But many victims “just aren’t ready� to cooperate, Gray said.

“Candidly, I’m sure we have encountered victims of human trafficking, but for various reasons, they … were scared to ask for help,� she said. She called the struggle to secure trafficking charges “frustrating.�

“There’s nothing we can really do about the fact that a lot of women oftentimes want to come in and just plead (guilty) instead of asking for services,� she said. “It’s heartbreaking. We’re here to help, we want to help.�

One woman, arrested at gunpoint, denies the charges

Xiuwen Zhang — a Chinese immigrant and state-licensed massage therapist who owns XF Massage at the Midlothian Station shopping center in Chesterfield, Virginia — said she deeply distrusts the police. She adamantly denied the allegations against her, and said she is not a victim of trafficking.

Zhang was arrested by Chesterfield police at gunpoint while at work in June. She was subsequently charged with prostitution and living or residing in a place of prostitution.

Speaking with The Times-Dispatch, Zhang said she would never offer sex acts for pay — and claimed an undercover detective asked her to perform illicit deeds. She also said that neither she nor any of the employees who have worked there are victims of human trafficking.

“I’m a good person,� Zhang said, sitting in the dimly lit, lavender oil-scented room where she was arrested and recounting the events to The Times-Dispatch.

Zhang said on the afternoon of her arrest, she had momentarily turned her back on a client, who unbeknownst to her was an undercover detective with Chesterfield police. When she turned back around, he was naked, she said.

“I said ‘no, no! Put your clothes back on!’� Zhang told The Times-Dispatch. Pierpont refuted that claim, and said officials have recorded evidence of Zhang soliciting illicit acts for pay.

Minutes later, police officers stormed the massage parlor, guns drawn and pointed at her head, Zhang said. Zhang — a 56-year-old immigrant from China married to an American citizen — said she feared for her life.

“I thought I was going to die,� she said through Google’s translation tool.

Then, the officers disabled her video surveillance cameras and seized cash from her desk drawer.

Pierpont’s version of events is much different.

“I can 100% say her (story) is inaccurate,� he said. “Our detectives are not allowed to solicit� illegal behavior — an act that could run afoul of state and federal entrapment laws.

Instead, he said detectives wait until sex acts are suggested, either verbally or through “gestures … or by touch(ing) the privates area.�

“They’re usually covered up,� Pierpont said of the detectives. He declined to disclose the audio tape he said proves Zhang made the first move.

Pierpont did acknowledge that police had drawn their weapons and turned off Zhang’s video feed during the arrest. Both choices, he said, were questions of safety.

“For the officers going in, that’s a normal procedure for us because we don’t know who else is in there,� he said of the guns. “It’s not that we thought she was a bad person; it’s just the unknown.�

He added that officers disabled the cameras so that Zhang and others would not see them coming. As for the seizure of the cash, Pierpont said it was an act of civil asset forfeiture. She’ll get her money back if a judge rules it was not earned illegally.

In March, Zhang was found guilty on one count of prostitution. Chesterfield police revoked her local massage permit.

While she is still state-licensed for now and could appeal the decision or practice in another locality, she said the publicity surrounding her arrest has already destroyed her reputation, brought her client list to nearly zero and destroyed her livelihood.

“I need to eat,� she said. “But now, I worry that I (will not) eat.�

She said she feels targeted by Chesterfield authorities because she is Chinese.

“Americans are so nice, so friendly,� she said through the translation tool. “But the police, the courts, I do not trust them.�

Some of the businesses are still open. Why?

Zhang’s XF Massage is one of at least three massage parlors that functioned for almost a year after employee arrests.

The other two businesses were Sunshine Health Massage — also owned by Zhang, and located at 255 Wadsworth Drive — and QF Massage at 9821 Chester Road. QF Massage is still open.

Asked why some of the locations had remained operational, Pierpont said the Chesterfield police department does not have the authority under state law to instantly and unilaterally shut down a business.

“That involves a judge,� Pierpont said.

Under state code, the circuit court can dissolve a corporation when its “directors or those in control of the corporation have acted, are acting, or will act in a manner that is illegal, oppressive, or fraudulent.�

But “just a conviction of one of the massage therapists operating without a license or … soliciting sex is not enough for a judge to close a business down,� Pierpont said, and other governmental agencies need to petition a judge to take that action.

For example, the Chesterfield Health District, which Pierpont said is involved in local oversight of massage parlors to ensure compliance with health-related code, could present evidence to a judge asking for a particular business to be shuttered if the agency believes it presents a threat to public health.

A spokesperson for the Chesterfield Health District, referring to county code, said the agency is only empowered to enforce violations of sanitary and maintenance regulations. Criminal code enforcement does not fall under the province of local health officials, the spokesperson said.

Some of the businesses have ceased functioning without court intervention, Pierpont said. Those were closed after the county attorney’s office in 2021 issued letters to the owners of the businesses indicating that the properties were the site of a criminal enterprise.

That worked in a few cases, Pierpont said, but in many others, attorneys for the property owners “wanted concrete evidence� before intervening.

“And we just didn’t have that at the time,� he said.

Midlothian Station, the complex that hosted XF Massage, is managed by Commonwealth Commercial. Midlothian Center, the complex that hosted Sunshine Health Massage, is managed by Thalhimer. Centralia Crossing, the complex that hosted QF Massage, is managed by CBRE.

Representatives for each of the three companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Who regulates massage parlors?

Under both state law and county code, Chesterfield massage parlors and their employees must clear multiple bars to operate legally.

First, each massage therapist must be licensed by the Virginia Department of Health Professions after completing a state-certified minimum 500-hour training program and passing an exam from the state’s Board of Nursing.

Alternatively, the massage therapist can present a valid license from another U.S. state or territory or a foreign country for consideration.

At least nine of the women arrested by Chesterfield police were authorized massage therapists in Virginia, records show, although the actual number may be higher for massage therapists whose name spellings vary across state licensing records and court documents.

Once licensed by the state, each massage therapist must obtain a massage permit through Chesterfield police. Applications are reviewed by the chief of police, who weighs applicants against the state code’s requirements.

Those permits must be renewed every three years. Massage therapists must consent to background checks and fingerprinting. Then each parlor must obtain a business license through the county’s office of the revenue commissioner.

Of the six guilty pleas secured by Chesterfield prosecutors, five were for violating one or more of the licensing and permitting requirements. Only one woman pleaded guilty to prostitution, which is a misdemeanor in Virginia.

In response to questions regarding licensure for the illicit massage businesses, Commissioner of the Revenue Jenefer Hughes said each of the businesses had previously provided her office with valid massage permits when applying for a business license, which is valid for 12 months.

“The permit must be submitted each year when the business license is renewed,� Hughes told The Times-Dispatch. “If (Chesterfield police) subsequently revokes the required permit, we will revoke the business license.�

A Chesterfield police spokesperson did not immediately respond when asked if the department planned to rescind massage permits for the involved employees.

‘There’s no actual plan’

Human trafficking in massage parlors and other businesses has been a known issue for years, Lombardo said, and its impact is certainly not limited to Chesterfield.

Chesterfield police began in-depth investigations in 2018, and Pierpoint said it’s been “a lot of trial and error� to get to this point. A big shift came in the fall of 2023 when the county tightened its ordinances on massage parlors.

The updated rules included the local massage permit application process, photo identification cards for authorized massage therapists in the county, narrower operating hours for massage parlors and a requirement for each business to keep a register of its employees.

The amended ordinance also allowed Chesterfield prosecutors to pursue both civil action and criminal prosecution against individuals and businesses who do not comply.

In September 2023 remarks urging Chesterfield’s Board of Supervisors to adopt the ordinance changes, Jeffrey Katz, then Chesterfield police chief, said it would make it easier for law enforcement to track and crack down on wrongdoing.

“We will have the ability to revoke the license and shut the place down,� Katz said at the time. “We need to regulate this commerce so that when a community member goes to get a therapeutic massage, that’s what they’re getting.�

Pierpont said the new rules have proven game-changing. However, during a Chesterfield Board of Supervisors meeting in June, Roxana Paduretu, a Chesterfield massage therapist, described enforcement as inconsistent and unfair, saying the county is not doing enough to intervene.

“There is no actual plan for how this ordinance will be implemented,� Paduretu said. “There are brothels that pretend to be massage clinics that employ willing and/or unwilling sex workers, (and) the only way … the Board of Nurses can act is if the local police department apprehends a licensed person performing an illegal act� and secures a guilty plea or conviction.

“It should be a well-oiled mechanism in which all the wheels are working together,� she said. “Instead, the local police department apprehends some people breaking the law, and they are either not prosecuted … or receive a slap on the wrist.�

Paduretu added that it is “ridiculous and outrageous … (that) law-abiding, small businesses owners are being forced to abide by this county regulation� — a regulation she said caused “panic and chaos� among the community when it was implemented.

Meanwhile, “criminals are allowed to walk out of the courtroom with impunity,� she said.

“This is not working, and we have to repeal it,� she concluded to substantial applause.

'Up in smoke'

Xiuwen Zhang’s husband, Paul McGowan, agreed that the ordinance is dysfunctional and unjust — but for different reasons.

“In March, we got this certified letter saying ‘you’re in violation of Chesterfield County ordinance blah blah blah, you’re illegal, if you don’t get these permits within 30 days you’ll be shut down,’� McGowan, a U.S. Army veteran and longtime Chesterfield resident, recalled.

“It was a very threatening letter,� he said, “and it came out of nowhere,� because nobody had informed the couple of the rule changes.

In his September 2023 comments to the Board of Supervisors, Katz said police had worked and would continue to work with massage parlor owners and employees so that the ordinance changes would not ambush them.

“They’d warned some of these businesses that they deemed legitimate — i.e., white, American,� McGowan said. “But we’ve never been made aware of any complaints against (Zhang).�

Pierpont categorically denied that Chesterfield police targets Asian American business owners. McGowan remains unconvinced.

“Chinese people come here, and they sacrifice a lot just to get here,� McGowan said of his spouse. “And Xiuwen is very law-abiding, very aware of the law.�

“I’m considering a civil lawsuit,� McGowan said. “We have this raid that happens, and in the few days following it, articles are all over … the news. You Google search her name, and she’s associated with human trafficking.�

The couple received a written notice from the Virginia Department of Health Professions enforcement division and a lease termination letter from the company landlord — all before Zhang’s case even went to court.

As for the recording that allegedly proves Zhang offered to perform sex acts on an undercover detective? McGowan said it clearly shows Zhang rejecting, “saying ‘no.’�

But McGowan couldn’t provide a copy of the tape because Chesterfield police wouldn’t release it to him or his wife.

Zhang’s hearing before the state licensing board is in May. McGowan fears the body will revoke her license and permanently jeopardize her career.

“Her American dream is going up in smoke,� he said.