.
THAI
authorities are waiting for a US request for cooperation to further
investigate alleged human trafficking of Thai women for prostitution in
several American cities following the latest arrest of 20 suspects who
are being prosecuted in US federal courts.
The office of Minnesota’s attorney-general said on Thursday that US
authorities would prosecute a total of 21 Thai and American suspects,
including one who is still at large, for their roles in a human
trafficking network luring Thai women to the US to work as prostitutes.
The Thai consulate’s office in Chicago said it was also working with
American counterparts to help Thai victims and suspects now in US
custody.
Hundreds of women
However,
Pol Colonel Krissana Pattanacharern, the deputy spokesman for Royal
Thai Police, said US authorities had not yet contacted Thai officials
for cooperation on the human trafficking-for-prostitution case in which
hundreds of Thai women were believed to be misled by the suspects to go
to the US for legal work but were forced to be prostitutes.
Krissana said the crime took place in the US so Thai authorities could
not interfere, but officials were ready to cooperate with US officials.
In the meantime, the Thai Foreign Affairs Ministry was responsible
for helping Thai victims and suspects, he said, adding that national
police chief Pol General Chaktip Chaichinda had already instructed
police to step up surveillance of domestic prostitution networks that
could be involved in the trafficking of Thai women to the US.
The
Chicago Sun Times earlier reported online that customers of a Thai
prostitution ring in that city had become key players in the nationwide
US operation in which the culprits rented out apartments for the women,
shuttling them from airports and even entering them into sham marriages
with brothel bosses so the woman could work legally.
“This is a unique twist I haven’t really seen before,” Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart was quoted as saying.
A federal indictment unsealed last Thursday charged 21 people across
the country — including six in the Chicago area — with being involved in
sex |trafficking. A related indictment in October charged 17 others.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office worked with the US Homeland Security
Investigations agents to shut down brothels employing Thai women in the
Chicago area and arrested six people authorities identified as
participants.
Source - TheNation
