While Donald Trump was waggling his finger about human trafficking and the southern border, his pal Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, allegedly paid for sex on at least two occasions with the product of a widespread human trafficking scheme involving underage Chinese girls.
The charges against Kraft stem from an in-depth human trafficking investigation involving underage girls shipped over to the United States from China with the promise of a job, only to be farmed out to massage parlors to have sex with men for $80-$100. Plus tips, of course.
Kerry Sanders reports on how it all worked in the video above.
The ringleaders, Chinese nationals, have been taken into custody. They're charged with human trafficking and money laundering, Sanders reported.
The investigation involved setting up surveillance cameras which took video of people inside the massage parlors, and one of those people on at least two occasions was Robert Kraft.
"What makes this so challenging of course for people to understand is, while Robert Kraft and the more than 170 people who now have arrest warrants out for them, while they're not charged with any sort of sex slave or any of the racketeering charges, it's alleged here that this is part of the problem in our country, that people go in and use these services without understanding what's going on," Sanders reported.
I think it's important to understand the exact circumstances under which these girls came to this country and why it's so disgusting that Kraft thought it was fine to avail himself of their services. Keep in mind, these are the old white guys screaming about refugees at the southern border while paying surreptitious visits to girls who spoke no English, were clearly not here legally, and were forced to live in subhuman conditions.
"These girls in China were duped into believing they were coming into the United States for a legitimate job, that they came to New York, they found themselves in strip malls along the East coast of Florida, working in massage parlors that were allegedly fronts for prostitution rings," Sanders reports.
"Clients would come in, pay $60 to $100, and they were required to perform sexual acts on each of the clients that came in, and then [ inaudible ] they actually had to sleep on the same tables that were set up for the massages and whatever else was going on. And they even had to go to the back of the strip malls and cook food on the back steps to keep themselves fed," he continued.
They couldn't reach out to anyone because they had a terrible language barrier. So they were in a foreign country, forced to have sex with men in strip mall massage parlors, and then cook their food outside so they could survive.
In our "free market economy," if there wasn't a market for those trafficked girls, they wouldn't do it. But as long as there are men willing to exploit women, there will be a market. Robert Kraft is but one of many.
This article has been corrected to remove references to underage girls, since the current reporting indicates they were adults.
