BERGEN COUNTY, N.J. (1010 WINS) -- Twenty-two people have been charged with running a New Jersey-based human trafficking ring that forced more than 50 women into prostitution, prosecutors say
The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office’s Special Investigations Squad launched an investigation into an international ring operating in Bergen County, northern New Jersey and New York this past November, the office said in a press release Thursday.
Investigators discovered that the ring’s leaders recruited several women to work for them each day, then paid drivers to bring the women to New Jersey, Rockland County and New York City, where they would perform sex acts with clients, prosecutors said.
The ring forced the women to work “for 12 or more hours per day, meeting with 20 to 40 men during their shift,” the release said.
Its leaders made hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal proceeds each month by charging $30 to $45 per 10 to 15 minute session, all of which was broken down and laundered into bank accounts, prosecutors said.
Two of the defendants who have been charged in connection with the ring used some of the proceeds to pay mortgages and keep up several properties they owned in New Jersey and Florida, according to prosecutors.
All but one of the defendants — a Teaneck resident who is believed to be in Colombia, South America — have been arrested, the prosecutor’s office said. Twenty of the defendants live in New Jersey and two live in Queens.
Attorney information for the 22 defendants wasn’t immediately available Thursday.