Attorney General Tim Griffin announces the results of human trafficking raids in his Little Rock office on Jan. 24, 2025. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate)
Four suspected human trafficking perpetrators are in custody following a statewide raid dubbed “Operation Obscured Vision,” Attorney General Tim Griffin announced Friday.
The initiative focused on 12 “illicit massage parlors” in Jonesboro, Russellville, Hot Springs, Rogers, Harrison and a Little Rock hotel, Griffin said. Seventeen purported trafficking victims were identified, aged 29-65, and 16 accepted services from medical staff and victim’s advocacy groups that partnered with the operation.
Griffin announced the operation’s results in his downtown Little Rock office, alongside many who were involved in the effort, including local law enforcement officers, prosecuting attorneys and advocacy groups.
“This has been literally about two years in the works,” Griffin said. “Over the last couple of days, we executed search warrants around the state as part of Operation Obscured Vision, and the point of this was to target illicit massage parlors.”
In addition to the arrests of Haiyan Lu, Qing Chen, Honliang Cai and Chunli Wang, law enforcement also seized $70,000, a Mercedes Benz and ¥1,870 in Chinese currency, Griffin said.
Through partnerships with interpreters, Griffin said victims told investigators that advertisements in China were encouraging people to come to the United States for opportunity, which he said was the illicit massage parlors. The victims and those arrested were all Chinese nationals, Griffin said.
“Evidence indicates that ‘Opportunities for work in the U.S.’ is how it’s presented,” he said. “I don’t think [the advertisements] say, ‘You want to work in a sex shop?’ I think they say, ‘We’ve got an opportunity in the United States,’ and that’s very attractive to people living in China who want to start over, want to have some money.”
Griffin said the people involved were generally operating under asylum visas and their continued presence in the U.S. would be determined by the federal government.
Asylum is a protection grantable to people who are unable to return to their home country for fear of persecution or harm, according to the American Immigration Council.
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Megan Brown, executive director and co-founder of the advocacy group Hope Found in northeast Arkansas, said her nonprofit provided clothing, food and housing opportunities to three victims in Jonesboro.
One of the main goals in talking with the victims was learning about the labor trafficking elements and the type of job environment that was offered, Brown said. There is often a lot of shame associated with sexual services, and Brown said the investigation instead questioned whether the victims were allowed to leave the premises, were forced to do the job or owed anyone money.
Brown said the majority of the women in the massage parlors don’t want to be there, but they don’t feel like there’s another option or they’re forced to do it.
“I think many people tend to turn a blind eye to these massage businesses,” she said.
Though comprehensive data on human trafficking in Arkansas is scarce, Brown said Hope Found is consistently being contacted by more victims each year. Since its start in 2018, the organization has been contacted by more than 150 victims, 70 of which occurred last year.
Brown said it was an honor to partner with the recent operation and indicated they would be involved again in the future.
Griffin said when he took office as attorney general in 2023, there were no human trafficking investigations. The Legislature then allocated funding during the 94th General Assembly for one full-time investigator in Griffin’s office, and he also established a Central Arkansas task force for human trafficking.
“This operation is the first significant beachhead that we’ve been able to make because of a full-time investigator,” Griffin said.
According to a press release about the operation, Griffin’s office will use the information collected in the investigation to target similar massage parlors in the state.
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“The criminals who run these establishments and the men who patronize them are on notice,” Griffin’s statement said. “We are coming for you, and we will put an end to this horrific practice of exploiting women through human trafficking.”
January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Earlier this month, Arkansas State Police launched a new webpage that provides victims with a county-level map to search for resources.
On Friday, Griffin said the human trafficking raids had no correlation to raids led by U.S. Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I don’t know anything about the ICE raids,” he said. “ICE was not involved in this. This is something I’ve been pursuing since before I was sworn in. … I’m not saying they weren’t something, but I have no knowledge of that.”
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