Apartment-dwellers in the South Bay were in for a big surprise last week as investigators made two arrests in a months-long sex trafficking operation.
Investigators from the Milpitas Police Department arrested a couple, David Davies, 57, and Larong Hu, 38, for allegedly running a sex trafficking operation out of high-end Milipitas rentals.
"The investigation began in December of 2019, when detectives from the Milpitas Police Department and Investigators from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office identified a brothel in the City of Milpitas," Milpitas police said in a statement according to reporting by SFGATE.
The couple allegedly lured women from overseas and upon arrival seized their passports. The brothel’s services were advertised on Backpage, a digital advertising platform, and on its own website. In the arrest, six women were rescued and $2 million was seized. The women were forced to have sex with as many as 15 men a day, according to Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Patrick Vanier told KNTV.
The couple used a high-end residential complex as the base of their operations, according to the district attorney’s office.
According to one resident, rent there can amount to upwards of $5,000 a month. Other residents and employees of the complex appear to have been unaware of the operation.
That complex wasn’t the only one. As part of a larger investigation, several other brothels were discovered also in Milpitas, San Jose and Palo Alto. Search warrants have been served to those also, police said.
The couple, Davies and Hu, are being held without bail with charges of human trafficking. They are expected to appear in court Monday.
The rescued victims were provided services through Community Solutions, an organization that provides critical services for victims of human trafficking, according to police. Anyone who is a victim of human trafficking, or knows someone who is, should call 911 immediately or call the 24-Hour National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
