When Gregory L. Fraase described the conditions that women working in his Asian massage parlors endured when they were growing up overseas, his words highlighted the way he and others may have taken advantage of their desperation.
“Most of these girls coming over, they don’t even have a shower in their house,” Fraase, 61, told a confidential witness in 2023 in the federal criminal case that would be filed against him in February 2024. “They wash in a 55-gallon barrel with rainwater. You know, so you see, so everything you do for them is like, it, it’s like, huge, you know what I mean?”
Police, social service workers and national experts say the alleged exploitation described in two pending criminal cases against Fraase, as well as neighborhood complaints that led to the Springfield City Council’s passage in 2024 of an ordinance cracking down on the type of establishments Fraase operated, point to the growth of the illicit massage parlor industry statewide and nationwide. The industry has strong connections to human trafficking networks, they said.
In fact, illegitimate massage parlors are the “second-largest venue” for human trafficking in Illinois based on calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, according to Carol Merna, chief executive officer of the Peoria-based Center for Prevention of Abuse.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says human trafficking is modern-day slavery and “involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.”
But Merna said massage parlors are different in several aspects from traditional brothels – the No. 1 venue associated with human trafficking in the state. She said the combination of mental manipulation, language and cultural barriers and threats of violence and other ramifications make it hard for victims to know what’s really happening, realize there is an alternative, seek help and escape.
“The people who work there are exploited,” Merna said. “They’re the victims. … They are instilled with a fear of law enforcement. There are threats to their family. There’s a fear of deportation. They are put into ‘debt bondage,’ so they’re given a quota and told to make a certain amount each day. And if they don’t, whatever they fall short is put on a ledger, and it keeps building every day.”
Merna applauded Springfield for joining the ranks of Chatham, Peoria and Pekin in passing local laws to regulate massage parlors and weed out those providing illegal services.
But some national experts question the long-term effectiveness of such ordinances. More innovative approaches are needed, and more needs to be done to help victims, they said.
“There’s been limited success,” said Lois Takahashi, an associate dean at San Jose State University who has studied the illicit massage parlor industry in New York City and Los Angeles County. “There’s demand for these services.”
Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco, a human trafficking expert based near Washington, D.C., said, “The problem is that this is an area where law enforcement struggles. I just don’t see disruption to the erotic massage parlor industry.”
A 2018 study by the nonprofit Polaris Project, which operates the human trafficking hotline (888-373-7888 or text INFO to 233733), said the illicit massage industry generated $2.5 billion in revenue a year, and Mehlman-Orozco thinks that number has almost doubled since then.
“A perfect storm of a business”
In Illinois, more than 800 of these establishments are operating, a 100% increase from three or four years ago, according to Lt. Brandon Grzechowiak, who supervises the Illinois State Police’s trafficking enforcement bureau.
Massage parlors that provide sexual services have operated in Illinois and around the country for decades. But Grzechowiak, who supervises four dedicated special agents who investigate human trafficking and other ISP officers throughout the state, believes the increase experts are seeing is related to the ease in which businesses can form and advertise their services on social media and other parts of the internet.
Takahashi said many workers in illicit massage establishments in New York and the Los Angeles area are not being coerced or scammed by their handlers. They voluntarily engage in prostitution as a way to make more money, she said.
But in Illinois, Merna, whose agency works with ISP to reach victims, said she believes “a large percentage” of these establishments are connected with human trafficking. And she said many involve organized crime. Most of the women in illicit massage parlors make their way to the U.S. from China or South Korea by way of New York or Los Angeles, Grzechowiak said.
Establishments that host the women often advertise on internet sites such as rubmaps.ch, adultlook.com and skipthegames.com, according to documents filed in Fraase’s criminal cases. The businesses often advertise their services with similar phrases that refer to, but don’t explicitly mention, sex. Common phrases in their ads can suggest connections and cooperation among massage parlor owners, Grzechowiak said.
Travel and movement for the women, and sometimes underage girls, may be restricted to isolate them, and the workers, who often live and sleep at the establishment, may not have control over the documents that allow them to be in the U.S. legally, he said.
Merna said criminal networks often transport women between communities. Their arrival to new locations may be advertised online to titillate the customer base, she said.
Customers tend to be middle-class men with disposable income, Mehlman-Orozco said. And Grzechowiak said men have been known to drive an hour or more, or from other states, to patronize massage parlors in Illinois and help preserve their anonymity.
A Forbes article in April 2021 said the illicit massage industry accounted for about one-quarter of the overall $16 billion massage services industry. Forbes said the erotic massage economy is “ubiquitous in American culture and touches every socioeconomic stratum.”
The article pointed to the February 2019 arrest of Robert Kraft, billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, in a massage-parlor sting in Florida. Kraft, 77 at the time, was charged with 24 other men with soliciting prostitution. He pleaded not guilty and issued a public apology before charges were dropped in 2020.
Illicit massage – which can range from manual stimulation to oral sex and intercourse – can be a “super-lucrative business” and “a good way to launder money,” Grzechowiak said.
“And again, you know you have victims who are traditionally not going to talk to law enforcement, so it’s a kind of perfect storm of a business,” he said.
Who’s profiting?
It’s unclear how lucrative the work can be for the women who engage in it.
Fraase played up the earning potential of workers in his approximately half-dozen local massage parlors in the recorded phone conversation with the confidential witness that was quoted in the federal affidavit.
Fraase, who has pleaded not guilty to federal conspiracy charges and is free while awaiting trial, told the witness that he made “ten grand” from just one of his “stores” two months prior to the conversation.
Fraase remains employed by the Sangamon County Water Reclamation District, where he currently earns $102,000 a year.
He said the “girls” working for him each were making between $15,000 and $30,000 per month, mostly through tips, while receiving free room and board. He called the amounts “mind-boggling … that’s why they all wanna work there. They’re making, they’re making a lifetime’s worth of money in a month.”
Fraase said he was keeping $30 of the $40 official fee his workers were charging for a half-hour massage and $50 of the $60 fees being charged for hour-long massages.
“We provide shelter, we provide the rent … we pay for all utilities, we pay for all that (and) we provide water, we provide rice, oils, toilet papers, paper towels, things like that,” he is quoted as saying.
Officials from the U.S. Attorney’s Office have declined comment on Fraase’s cases and on the general topic of illicit massage parlors. Fraase and his attorneys also have declined comment.
Experts consulted by Illinois Times said illicit massage may be lucrative, but who benefits financially can vary.
Mehlman-Orozco said the earnings quoted by Fraase – if true – are plausible because the average tip in these establishments is $40 and can be much more, and a female worker could have eight or more male customers a day.
According to experts, whether a woman is engaging in consensual sex work or being trafficked can depend on how much money she can keep for personal use or how much she must send home to family members overseas who may have agreed to hand her over to traffickers.
A source in the Springfield legal community who asked not to be identified said illicit massage parlor workers in central Illinois are unlikely to be living in luxury or earning hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal use.
Celsy Young, a spokesperson for the Center for Prevention of Abuse, said: “Human trafficking, especially within illicit massage businesses, is rarely as straightforward as simply whether or not the workers are earning a lot of money.
“While it’s possible that some individuals may be engaging in sex work willingly or voluntarily, in many cases people working in these establishments are not in control of their circumstances. Traffickers often create circumstances that allow for some appearance of independence or financial gain, but this does not mean the workers are not being exploited through fraud, force or coercion.”
Experts say illicit massage workers are made to feel like the general public in the United States and overseas looks down on them, so it would be pointless and risky to their safety and immigration status if they tried to get help from authorities. The language barrier only adds to their paranoia and feelings of helplessness, Merna said.
“Make sure that the victims are cared for”
Many of the suspect parlors have legitimate business licenses from the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office. But in Illinois and other states, laws are lax when it comes to requiring public disclosure of who truly owns and operates these businesses, according to Mehlman-Orozco. Changes to those laws could help enforcement, she said.
Merna said illicit massage is “pretty low-risk, high-profit,” except in communities such as Peoria and Springfield, where attempts to regulate the industry in favor of state-licensed massage therapists have the potential for some positive change.
Peoria’s ordinance passed in 2018, and Merna said fewer online listings on salacious websites is evidence there may be less illegal activity.
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation is in charge of enforcing state regulations that prohibit people from advertising and providing massage therapy when they don’t have a license to do so.
But Grzechowiak said IDFPR doesn’t have adequate staff to police the illicit massage industry, so local laws enforced by local governments are a starting point to make operating uncomfortable enough to push illegal businesses out of Illinois.
Grzechowiak supervises four ISP agents who investigate human trafficking and train other ISP officers on this specialized area of crime. His bureau has been operational only since mid-2023, and he said training of rank-and-file police on all aspects of trafficking in Illinois is in its infancy.
The focus of law enforcement should be on breaking up trafficking networks and getting victims resources, Grzechowiak said, so arresting victims often isn’t helpful and makes them even more fearful of seeking help or testifying against traffickers.
Police that Grzechowiak’s bureau works with try to put victims in touch with the Center for Prevention of Abuse and other groups that can help preserve their immigration status.
The center, a nonprofit that began in 1975 by first serving victims of domestic violence, added a human trafficking department in 2018. The center now provides outreach services to victims, first-responders, social-service agencies and others who may see signs of trafficking.
The center’s trafficking department serves the 46 counties in the territory of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Central District of Illinois, which includes Sangamon, Peoria and Champaign counties and many adjacent areas.
“Kudos to the communities that are doing what they can to make sure that the victims are cared for,” Merna said. “We want people to understand that if they see something, if something raises the hair on the back of their neck, something that makes their stomach feel bad, then maybe we need to think twice about it and make a phone call.”
But Merna said people trafficked in the massage industry are particularly resistant to outreach.
“They may not understand, even with a translator, that we are here to help,” Merna said. “Law enforcement is absolutely frightening to them because they are told every day, ‘They’re going to put you in prison. They’re going to deport you. They’re going to tell your family what you’re doing.'”
Out of the more than 260 trafficking clients being served by the Center for Prevention of Abuse, there aren’t any clients right now who were connected with the illicit massage industry, center officials said.
“But we’re here for them, and our services are 100% free and confidential,” Merna said. She added that the center can be reached through its website, centerforpreventionofabuse.org, and through its crisis hotline, 800-559-SAFE (7233).
Local enforcement
The enforcement of Springfield’s massage parlor ordinance, passed in June 2024, resulted in the recent closure of 11 massage parlors. Another 25 are believed to be operating legitimately with state-licensed massage therapists on site and expected to be issued licenses in the coming weeks.
The closed parlors can petition to reopen if they meet city standards, but they could be forced to pay fines ranging from $250 to $750 per violation.
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City of Springfield shuts down 11 massage parlors
Another 11 parlors are still operating and may be issued licenses if they pass inspections, according to Gregory Moredock, the city’s chief legal counsel. He is overseeing the ordinance rollout and helping to coordinate the various city departments involved.
Mehlman-Orozco said the clandestine nature of illicit massage establishments, and the difficulty of municipal officials knowing what is going on inside at all times, can present challenges in reducing human trafficking.
Big cities like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles have hundreds of such establishments, some of which can close down and then reopen secretly as part of a nail salon or other supposedly legitimate business, she said.
Mehlman-Orozco said it’s possible regulation efforts in midsize cities such as Springfield could be more effective. Grzechowiak, the Illinois State Police officer, said ongoing enforcement of ordinances can be “definitely a whack-a-mole approach” for local governments.
Mehlman-Orozco recommends that cities and towns require massage parlors to allow educational outreach efforts to their staff on human trafficking and ways of escaping it, as part of any municipal licensing program. She said she also supports sting operations by police to publicly embarrass the clients, known as “johns,” who seek illicit massage services.
Local police agencies contacted by Illinois Times wouldn’t comment other than to acknowledge their ongoing efforts to investigate massage parlors.
Moredock said the city requires massage parlors to post notices inside that say, in part, “State law prohibits soliciting another for the purpose of a sexual act.”
He said the team of city workers that conducted the recent massage-parlor closures included members of the city’s community outreach team in case potential human trafficking victims were present so they could be directed to social services.
A member of the team said no victims were encountered during the recent closures.
Ken Pacha, a retail salesman and regular commenter at City Council meetings, has faulted city officials for what he considered a slower-then-necessary rollout of the ordinance. He also was disappointed by the less-aggressive approach to closures than he believes is justified and the lack of a holistic system.
“It raises the specter of ‘what took so long?'” he told Illinois Times. “Let’s err on the side of helping people. … And shutting down these (locally) is great, but where are these women going? Is that the best solution we can offer?”
Pacha, 43, wants to see City Council members show more “real concern” about what he calls the daily rape of women that’s still going on every day in illicit massage parlors in Springfield.
Moredock said the concern is there and is demonstrated by the care that Mayor Misty Buscher and City Council members have taken, and the high priority they have given to ensure the ordinance is enforced, is fair to all applicants for massage licenses and holds up in court.
Audio and video of an anonymous young man’s recent alleged encounter with a local massage parlor worker is circulating on social media. He claims to have received a hand job as part of a sting operation he conducted independently at a parlor along Adlai Stevenson Drive.
Moredock said Springfield has no say over the establishment because it is in unincorporated Sangamon County. The county doesn’t have a massage parlor ordinance.
Moredock said the city will follow up on indications, first reported in The State Journal-Register, that a few of the 11 recently closed massage parlors in Springfield may have reopened and may have resumed operations. In response, the city could take administrative action or file civil lawsuits against proprietors and property owners, he said.
Moredock said the city also will follow up on reports from neighbors who have complained that they have seen, and recorded on video, the proprietor a Springfield massage parlor escorting other Asian women inside a building that used to house Golden Relax Massage. Golden Relax, 452 South Grand Ave. W., closed in 2024 before the Springfield ordinance was passed. Golden Relax hasn’t been linked to Fraase’s cases.
Neighbors believe the former Golden Relax building, owned by Xiaolin Ding, who is suspected to be residing in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood, is being used as living quarters for women from illicit massage parlors in the area, according to Hawthorne Place Neighborhood Association President Stacey Hayes.
Hayes considers the women to be slaves.
“It is concerning that these women are being held prisoner there just a block from our house,” she said.
What may be going on at the former Golden Relax site is a sign that neighbors can’t fully relax, Hayes said. But she said she and other neighbors are proud the attention they directed toward the two former massage parlors and the parlors’ customers – on social media and in front of city officials – played a part in their closures.
Men from Illinois and other states parked on neighborhood streets and in a nearby church parking lot to avoid attention, but Hayes said neighbors posted photos and videos of the men and their car license plates on Facebook.
Neighbors also read warnings on websites that men planning to patronize the establishments should cover up their license plates, she said.
For a time, the women who worked at Golden Massage appeared to be living in the building’s basement, Hayes said.
“I’m glad that the city is taking action,” she said. “It took my breath away when I first saw the number … that there’s this need for so many massage parlors.”
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This article appears in Combating human trafficking.
“A member of the team said no victims were encountered during the recent closures.”- absolute bullsh1t. So the buildings were completely empty when they were closed? The city and law enforcement are aware that there are women being held captive in these businesses and apparently not one thing was done to locate them, get them legitimate shelter, counseling, and legal advice. Shutting down a business like this without ALSO rescuing the women involved is meaningless.