Federal agents arrested 13 suspects in connection with an alleged sex trafficking ring in Houston that prostituted underage, undocumented girls from Mexico for up to $500 an hour, according to an indictment unsealed Friday morning.
Federal prosecutors allege the ring operated out of several Houston bars and brothels and the suspects charged "premium prices" for sex with underage girls. The girls were locked up and beaten and charged for condoms, the indictment alleges.
The FBI, state and local law enforcement agencies raided clubs in the southeast Houston area Thursday night, including one in the 5600 block of Telephone Road.
Neighbors said they saw 20 or more young girls being led out of the Nuevo Amanecer nightclub after the raid.
The girls were taken away in a bus.
The indictment names 14 suspects including one man who remains a fugitive: Alfonso Diaz-Juarez, aka "Poncho."
Prosecutors described a woman named Hortencia Medeles-Arguello, aka La Tencha, as the "matriarch" of the ring, alleging she employed her daughters and other relatives in the brothels. The suspects relied on pimps known as "padrotes" to recruit, smuggle and supply the young women prostituted in the bars.
The girls were kept locked in a second-story room above a bar now called Nuevo Amanecer, and the ring charged a $20 fee for a condom and $15 to use a prostitution room, according to the indictment. The room and condom fees topped $1.26 million from February 2012 to August.
The charge for the sex acts ranged from $65 for 15 minutes to up to $500 per hour.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/FBI-raids-nightclubs-in-southeast-Houston-4886010.phpPretty much all of those arrested are illegals, as is the one remaining suspect.
We can thank Houston's lesbian mayor for making the city a haven for illegals by turning it into a "sanctuary city."
