DETROIT – Six women were removed from a human sex trafficking operation that started in Royal Oak Township and ended in Detroit.
The investigation started in Royal Oak Township, where Michigan State Police Troopers listened to people talk to connect the dots to a house in Detroit where they found six women held against their will.
Officials say the six women were beaten by their captors and forced into sex acts while giving their money back to their captors.
Local 4 dug deeper into a human trafficking operation that was busted in Detroit on Monday (Nov. 20).
“So right now, we finished up with our investigation after serving a search warrant where we made four arrests out of the people that were detained out on the scene,” said Michigan State Police Lt. Mike Shaw. “Those four were lodged at the Detroit Detention Center. So they’ll be there until the prosecutor makes a decision on the rest of what’s going on in the investigation. As far as the victims went, we had one that had wanted immediate medical attention as well as some services that we could provide to her. Our detectives were able to get that for her, so she was there. The other victims didn’t want anything immediately, but they wanted a list of services that were available to help get them out of that situation, so that was provided to them as well and then they were released.”
Officials say the six women were all over the age of 20 and were each from a different part of Michigan. They were held against their will, hooked on drugs, and forced to engage in prostitution, where they were given cash quotas that they had to make.
The young women, who were mostly runaways, were easily preyed upon, becoming addicted to narcotics. The evidence so far showed they were forced to engage in sex to make their captors cash.
“They were beaten by these gentlemen, and they were not allowed to have cellphones or identification, and they were kept in the house required to make a certain amount of calls a day,” Shaw said. “It was a very rough life.”
The women were reported safe by authorities, and charges could come as early as Wednesday for the men involved.
MSP says the operation was not part of a larger ring.
