08/09/2019
HSI St. Thomas arrests Dominican national for alien smuggling, prostitution scheme
ST. THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents, working jointly with the FBI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Virgin Islands Police Department (VIPD) arrested a Dominican national Wednesday for crimes related to alien smuggling and prostitution scheme.
According to court documents unsealed Thursday, between December 2018 and August 2019, Yohanna Gonzalez-McFarlane, 38, of the Dominican Republic, operated the Underground Nightclub in St. Thomas. She recruited young foreign women and arranged to have them smuggled into the U.S. Virgin Islands to engage in prostitution while working at the bar. Gonzalez-McFarlane then housed the women at a residence in St. Thomas and required them to engage in commercial sex at the defendant’s nightclub to repay their smuggling debts.
https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/hsi-st-thomas-arrests-dominican-national-alien-smuggling-prostitution-scheme
