How a sex-slave ring kept its doors open

[peejay 327]

How a sex-slave ring kept its doors open

Paper game thwarted efforts to close east Houston compound

By LISE OLSEN and SUSAN CARROLL

HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Feb. 27, 2011, 8:29PM

Behind the brick-red cantina on industrial Clinton Drive, in the shadow of the Port of Houston, sex traffickers for more than a decade have sold women and girls for sex, some as young as 14, imprisoned by intimidation and fear.

So notorious is the bar that undercover Texas alcohol investigators long ago documented its seedy intricacies: an escape hatch, a hidden passageway leading to decrepit and gated houses of prostitution described as "horse stalls." Federal, state and local agents learned by name and face many key characters who operated La Costenita and made repeated - but only partially successful efforts - to stop them.

An unexpected break came last year when a trafficking victim dared beg for rescue during an unannounced state inspection of the bar. Last week, federal agents secured the indictment of alleged cantina owner and operator Maria "Nancy" Rojas and nine others, arresting them in a late-night raid on the club and compound and rescuing at least nine women and girls.

It is the third time since 2005 that federal prosecutors have charged alleged operators, owners and pimps linked to those rogue Clinton Drive cantinas. But in the past, the alleged ring members demonstrated an uncanny ability to regenerate their operation and continue trafficking and selling sex in the same locations, records show.

Various members of the ring, identified in the new indictments, have for a dozen years repeatedly used the Clinton Drive cantinas, including the Maria Bonita and La Costenita, to harbor women and girls illegally brought to the United States and sell them - along with paper towels and condoms - to clients in a lucrative cash business, documents allege.

A paper game

To avoid seizures and shutdowns, ring members repeatedly transferred business ownerships or property after past crackdowns, deftly playing a paper game that left some city and state officials frustrated and clamoring for stronger laws targeting people who profit from selling women, men and minors as virtual slaves, according to documents and interviews.

This time around, state, local and federal officers acting together as the Houston Trafficking Rescue Alliance hope the operation is shut down for good. Along with the latest indictments, federal officials filed criminal forfeiture paperwork to seize nine properties, including the Costenita Bar, houses and other proceeds earned by the sex-trafficking ring.

"There's a lot of money to be made," said Assistant United States Attorney Ruben Perez. "That's why they keep rearing their

ugly heads. It's very lucrative."

Deep roots in Houston

Victims of human trafficking, often psychologically and physically damaged, typically receive shelter and short-term government assistance after rescues as criminal cases continue. However, some rescued in previous operations drifted away or fled before completing the long, difficult process needed to obtain T-visas reserved for trafficking victims.

Some of the players named in the latest indictments have 20-year roots in Houston. Rojas, 46, a cantina owner identified in last week's indictments of the Clinton Drive trafficking ring, started out as a prostitute in Houston in 1990, Harris County court records show.

That year, Rojas was arrested for prostitution together with Gregoria "Blanca" Salgado Vazquez, now 60, and another illegal immigrant leader in the ring, according to records. Both were deported but illegally returned, bought property and are alleged to be co-conspirators.

For years, Rojas oversaw operations at La Costenita while Vazquez ran other bars and actively imported girls from Mexico to sell as prostitutes, the indictment and other records allege.

Later, the ring turned to another ruthless supplier - Gerardo Salazar Tecuapacho from the Mexican state of Tlaxcala who earned the nickname "El Gallo" by tattooing his girlfriends and victims with his trademark rooster. Salazar, now in his mid 40s, long led a band of traffickers who specialized in conning unsuspecting young women into accompanying them to Houston where despite promises of love, marriage or legitimate jobs, a life of cantina slavery awaited, records allege.

In 2005, one of Salazar's teenage victims called a domestic violence hot line and told rescuers she'd been brutally beaten and sold in Clinton Drive clubs. Agents successfully made cases against five ring members. But neither Rojas or Vazquez, the two women operators, was indicted.

Salazar evaded arrest and fled to Mexico, making the FBI's Most Wanted List. Eventually, an anonymous tip led to his arrest last year in Mexico. He was taken to a state prison though he offered his red Pontiac Trans Am and a house in exchange for his freedom, Mexican documents say. Salazar remains in Mexico as the U.S. seeks his extradition.

Mother, son arrested

But the Clinton Drive cantinas continued, business as usual.

Vazquez and her U.S.-born son, David Salazar, were arrested in 2008 by the Jacinto City police department after another teenage trafficking victim called 911, claiming to be held captive in their house. Her calls, on a borrowed cell phone, prompted manhunts.

Once found, the girl told a Jacinto City detective she also had been forced to prostitute herself in cantinas. Vazquez and David Salazar were prosecuted for harboring an illegal immigrant; their house was seized. But their Clinton Drive cantina, the Maria Bonita, remained open for another year or more.

Bar owners who operate businesses as fronts for organized crime can be shut down, or even lose their property, under various state and federal laws, though the process can be complex. But lawless bar operators employ lookouts and bouncers to thwart agents and use legal tricks to keep operating by changing ownership on deed records or renewing liquor licenses under names borrowed from family or friends.

"It's been hard to stop them," said Mandi Sheridan Kimball, director of public policy and government affairs for the advocacy organization Children at Risk. "People are kind of at a loss for how to prevent it."

65 businesses targeted

The city of Houston in 2009 tried to target the Maria Bonita by using the state's nuisance law, which prohibits a range of crimes including prostitution. Two months later, the city was notified that the bar had changed hands, said Nirja Aiyer, a senior assistant city attorney.

"We all know they're just doing it on paper, but the problem the city has is that you can't go after the new owner and say, 'You're responsible for all the crime at this property,' when they weren't in fact the owner at the time the crimes were committed," she said.

In the past three years, the city has targeted 65 businesses, including cantinas, with a "high likelihood" of being havens for trafficking. So far, 40 have been evicted, closed down voluntarily or sued by the city. City officials shut down at least four sites involved in sex trafficking.

In the months before the latest indictments, new witnesses came forward with horrifying stories of abuse: One told of being repeatedly struck and having a gun placed to her abdomen while pregnant; her life and the lives of family were threatened if she refused to engage in prostitution. Other girls, including minors supplied with fake IDs, got slapped, hit and kicked often as owner Rojas watched, federal court records say.

None of the victims rescued so far from the Clinton Drive cantinas has received any restitution from arrests or seizures, something activists say they should receive.

"Why can't the victims own the buildings?" asks Dottie Laster, who helped rescue the first victim in 2004. "They were prostituted there."

A DOZEN YEARS OF

CANTINA TRAFFICKING

1999: Human traffickers begin using Clinton Drive cantinas, including La Costeñita and the Maria Bonita.

2005: Unidentified minor girl with rooster tattoo escapes and claims being beaten and prostituted at both bars.

November 2005: Clinton cantinas raided; five ring members arrested. Trafficker Gerardo "El Gallo" Salazar flees. Bars remain open.

2006: Maria "Nancy" Rojas, deported after prostitution arrest, later illegally returns to operate La Costeñita.

March 2008: Teenage girl in Jacinto City calls 911, claiming to have been held as sex slave by Maria Bonita owners.

2008-2009: Reports of prostitution and illegal activity continue at La Costeñita.

June 2009: Maria Bonita's liquor license canceled by Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.

July 2009: Maria Bonita owners Gregoria Vazquez and son David Salazar convicted of harboring an illegal immigrant; Jacinto City home seized.

July-September 2009: The city of Houston attempts to seize Maria Bonita but property changes ownership.

February 2010: La Costeñita cantina liquor license suspended for 30 days and $9,000 fine issued for various violations.

Feb. 26, 2010: Texas attorney general reports evidence of trafficking and assaults at La Costeñita.

February 2011: Ten ring members indicted on human trafficking charges; federal officials begin efforts to seize homes and other property. Court records allege Rojas as main cantina operator and say Gerardo Salazar and Vazquez supplied girls for ring.

Source: Federal and state court records, Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission reports and liquor-licensing data, property records.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7448566.html

[Ban Hammer 13,484]

i wonder if ted kennedy went there too.

[peejay 327]

i wonder if ted kennedy went there too.

This was a low end operation for working class mojados. Too far down the food chain for Cadillac liberals of Kennedy's ilk. However, it was and is enablers like Kennedy that keeps trash like this operating in our country through his political policies. Can you say, "Open borders"? And I'm not referring to Canada.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Stop it PeeJay.

Its OK , they are not white. It is perfectly fine to pay them less than miimum wage, deprive them of a safe workplace and yes, even abuse them sexually. They are here illegally, who are they going to complain to? If you are against this, you are a racist! If you ask them for ID you are a racist! We need to protect American employer's rights to enslave and abuse brown people, rape brown women and children and no one asks a question! The federal slave mongers will even litigate against states if they dare to try and cut in on their slave business,

This is what happens when we do not punish American employers for hiring illegals. Illegals are slaves. The men are slaves to contractors and roofers and landscapers, working cheap to line their pockets. The women, even girls are slaves for sex and cleaning toilets. It is all OK because our politicians use and abuse them for votes and for rich constituents that want to make themselves more rich buy underpaying cheap labor.

It is a disgusting abuse of humans and it is perfectly fine with our politicians that could stop it tomorrow and choose not to.

[peejay 327]

Stop it PeeJay.

Its OK , they are not white. It is perfectly fine to pay them less than miimum wage, deprive them of a safe workplace and yes, even abuse them sexually. They are here illegally, who are they going to complain to? If you are against this, you are a racist! If you ask them for ID you are a racist! We need to protect American employer's rights to enslave and abuse brown people, rape brown women and children and no one asks a question! The federal slave mongers will even litigate against states if they dare to try and cut in on their slave business,

This is what happens when we do not punish American employers for hiring illegals. Illegals are slaves. The men are slaves to contractors and roofers and landscapers, working cheap to line their pockets. The women, even girls are slaves for sex and cleaning toilets. It is all OK because our politicians use and abuse them for votes and for rich constituents that want to make themselves more rich buy underpaying cheap labor.

It is a disgusting abuse of humans and it is perfectly fine with our politicians that could stop it tomorrow and choose not to.

The only problem with that is that it isn't American employers that were operating this industrial grade ####### house for more than a decade. It was illegal aliens. That is why I said that our government is incompetent and corrupt for letting it go on for so long when it was well known. This operation was no secret. Pure corruption from the upper echelons of Washington DC down to the street cops. Third world thrills. The American people should be ashamed that our government enables this sort of sh*t in our country on the scale it does. When they refuse to enforce one set of laws the bar just gets set lower and lower. This is a perfect example.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

The only problem with that is that it isn't American employers that were operating this industrial grade ####### house for more than a decade. It was illegal aliens. That is why I said that our government is incompetent and corrupt for letting it go on for so long when it was well known. This operation was no secret. Pure corruption from the upper echelons of Washington DC down to the street cops. Third world thrills. The American people should be ashamed that our government enables this sort of sh*t in our country on the scale it does. When they refuse to enforce one set of laws the bar just gets set lower and lower. This is a perfect example.

Doesn't matter that in thi scase is was illegal exloiting illegals. The problem is that anyone can exploit anyone and the penaty is so small that the benefit outweighs the risk.

IF the federal government would strictly punish ANY employer for hiring illegals, then the job opportunities for illegals will vanish, the illegals will vanish and there will BE NO illegal women for illegal aliens to exploit as sex slaves.

we MUST stop the economic incentive for illegals to be here. That is WHY they are here. That is WHY employers hire them. We have all these damn moths swarming around our porch light and we are trying to swat the moths (or pretending to try to swat the moths) TURN OFF THE LIGHT!

We KNOW how to use taxes incentives and disincentives for everything else but when it comes to illegals and the people hiring them we are supposed to believe the government had a brain fart and forgot how to apply the tax code to employers?

This is a deliberate and premeditated scheme to circumvent wage and hour laws to provide cheap labor for Republicans and eventual votes for Democrats. Sex slave rings are just an unfortunate side effect. Who cares?

[peejay 327]

This is a deliberate and premeditated scheme to circumvent wage and hour laws to provide cheap labor for Republicans and eventual votes for Democrats. Sex slave rings are just an unfortunate side effect. Who cares?

I'm not a Republican nor am I a Democrat. Cheap labor and cheap votes don't mean sh*t to me. I just look at Houston and see what that mentality has done to my neighborhood. I didn't move to the third world...it moved to me. And it ain't pretty.

And it will be at your own doorstep soon enough at the rate we are going. It's just a matter of time if nobody cares.

[Danno 1,228]

I'm not a Republican nor am I a Democrat. Cheap labor and cheap votes don't mean sh*t to me. I just look at Houston and see what that mentality has done to my neighborhood. I didn't move to the third world...it moved to me. And it ain't pretty.

And it will be at your own doorstep soon enough at the rate we are going. It's just a matter of time if nobody cares.

Awwe come'on man these are just the bumps in the road to an evolving America.