Martin County sheriff cracking down on ‘illicit spas’
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STUART, Florida (WPBF) — The Martin County sheriff announced Wednesday he believes he’s identified every illicit massage parlor in the county and is more than halfway through shutting them all down.
Sheriff William Snyder said they’ve identified seven massage parlors in all: Oriental Spa, Green Massage, Water Cube Massage, Palm Spa, Asian Sports Massage, Massage Orchid, and Le Mandarin Massage and Spa.
Snyder said Oriental Spa, Green Massage, Water Cube Massage, and Palm Spa have all been shut down.
He believes the other three will shut down soon.
Snyder said they’ve been working on these investigations since five years ago when neighbors started filing complaints with the sheriff’s office.
“Surrounding businesses were just fed up with the activity,” Snyder said. “Men coming and going all day, taking up parking spaces, actually coming into their businesses to enjoy the air conditioning and just wait their turn.”
Snyder said that’s when his office started sending undercover deputies into the spas to gather evidence.
It took years to build the cases and start shutting down the spas.
“Sometimes, justice has to be served cold,” Snyder said. “And it’s taken me this long and my good detectives this long to work up these cases and finally get rid of what I think is a real scourge in this county.”
Snyder said it’s not just the prostitution.
“These massage parlors, the ones that are illicit, invariably end up in human smuggling activities, invariably are ongoing criminal racketeering enterprises, money laundering,” he said.
Snyder said his office has also been targeting the landlords for the spas, telling them they must either evict them or be arrested themselves for allowing illegal activity to continue.
He said the landlords have so far chosen to cooperate with law enforcement.
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