So many dubious massage shops keep popping up in Tri-Cities. What’s being done about it

Even as Linhui Yan was being investigated for human trafficking in Louisiana, he held a massage therapy license in Washington.

That license was used to open and operate 12 massage businesses across the state, including four in Kennewick. At least one of those involved a woman who offered to sell sexual services to an undercover officer.

The state Department of Health recently suspended Yan’s license after he was charged criminally in Chelan County with leading an organized crime organization, promoting prostitution and money laundering.

The Kennewick raid on West Clearwater Avenue in March highlighted a problem hiding in plain sight.

It ended up being the first of three raids over a few months that led to 11 Tri-Cities massage parlors closing.

Six were directly tied to sex trafficking allegations and two because of licensing problems. Three others closed for unknown reasons but were tied to one of the owners.

It’s a problem that’s been an open secret in the community for while, said Tricia MacFarlan, who runs the faith-based Mirror Ministries working to help survivors of human trafficking.

The shops often don’t stand out.

They’re not flashy and are often found in shopping centers, providing them with an air of legitimacy, said Chris Muller-Tabenera, the chief strategy officer with The Network, an intelligence-driven counter human trafficking organization.

A combination of a lack of resources and a lack of will to find the businesses has created an open market where women are usually brought in from East Asian countries and required to sell sex, he said.

The number of illicit massage parlors across the U.S. has grown 10% a year since 2019, Muller-Tabenera said.

“What’s really driving the increasing market is the level of impunity and invincibility that operators feel in running an illicit massage parlor,” he said.

Most of the eight shops searched this year in Richland and Kennewick opened within the last year.

Sgt. Chris Littrell said the booming population in the Tri-Cities is also a factor.

“As we grow, things tend to quietly settle in,” he said. “Sometimes it’s good things. Sometimes it’s unlawful things. We have to decide as a Tri-City community what we’re going to tolerate. If we approach it as a community, it’s going to increase the ability to solve it.”

Kennewick and Richland city councils are taking steps to address the issue. Each adopted new rules this year in an attempt to curtail what has been a growing issue not only in the Tri-Cities, but nationwide.

City officials hope the changes will be the first steps to making it more difficult for illicit massage parlors to open and stay operating in the Tri-Cities.

Pasco doesn’t have current plans to change its ordinances, said officials.

Illicit massage parlors

Kennewick’s efforts to find illicit shops this year started with people calling police about their unusual experiences at the storefronts, said Littrell.

Then in March, Kennewick police were contacted by the Wenatchee-based Columbia River Drug Task Force. The task force was in the middle of a 7-month investigation into Linhui Yan and Yan Yang.

Yan already had been tied to a Louisiana massage parlor in 2019 that was accused of engaging in human trafficking, according to a story from WAFB-TV.

Yan held a massage therapist license issued by the Washington State Department of Health in 2015, according to public records. However, court records show he wasn’t at any of the locations police investigated.

That includes the raided Clearwater Avenue shop.

According to public records, Yan had business licenses for three other locations in Kennewick. One was closed before the investigation and two others were closed after. It’s not clear whether those closures were tied to the investigation.

Currently, Yan and Yang are facing criminal charges in Chelan County.

In late April, Richland massage businesses with different owners were raided.

Richland police were helping with a King County investigation that lead to the Eastern Silk Spa on George Washington Way.

A suspected organized crime operation from Burien was allegedly operating the business, according to police.

Gerald and Jing Emtage have since been charged in King County with leading a criminal organization and promoting prostitution.

6 suspected massage shops

Then in May, Kennewick investigators, state Department of Health inspectors and Mirror Ministries officials visited six other shops on busy Kennewick streets.

None were reportedly following state laws required for massage businesses.

The six businesses searched were:

ShangriLa Massage 5917 W. Clearwater Ave.

VIP Massage at 3321 W. Kennewick Ave. Fragrant Oil Spa at 5009 W. Clearwater Ave. Royal Massage appears to be located at 4727 W. Clearwater Ave. Joy Spa at 2459 South Union Place Dream Spa at 5612 W. Clearwater Ave.

Two of them, Joy Spa and Dream Spa, were not linked to selling sexual services, Kennewick Commander Christian Walters told the Herald.

None of the businesses have reopened at those locations.

All of the businesses posted a license for a massage therapist, but permitted several unlicensed practitioners to operate. The youngest woman was in her late 30s and the oldest was in her 50s, according to Kennewick officials.

Investigators found nine women, who appeared to be living the buildings, and all except one didn’t speak English, according to Kennewick officials.

In the past, police arrested the women found at illicit massage parlors but that has changed not that officials are recognizing that the women are mostly likely trafficking victims.

This time, Mirror Ministries officials were on hand to offer help to the women, instead. MacFarlan said at least one woman had been so deprived of personal belongings she broke down crying when she was offered some new underwear.

“It’s those little pieces of dignity that are so very powerful,” MacFarlan told the Herald.

“Most of the women we talked to didn’t feel like they had any other options for employment,” she said. “It’s disheartening that there isn’t more uproar for these women from our community. We all seem to know these massage parlors are here.”

Officials said their investigation found that some of the women didn’t know what town they were in and some had been flown to Seattle before being driven to the Tri-Cities. Many were clearly living in the stores, bathing in the store restrooms and eating and sleeping in office areas.

Who owns the businesses?

The ownership of the questionable businesses is often hard to determine, Assistant City Attorney Laurencio Sanguino told the Kennewick City Council at a hearing.

A search of the Department of Revenue records shows the Kennewick businesses were either listed as a sole proprietorships or a limited liability corporations with names like BB Management and Consulting, Toan LLC and Eel Electric LLC.

Sanguino explained that these business allow the license holders to hide additional owners and then reopen under another name.

State records show three of the locations, ShangriLa Massage, Dream Spa and Joy Spa were owned by the same person.

The names of the owners and corporations are general enough that there are hundreds of entries in public records for the same name, making it hard to identify the exact owner.

With one exception, they all used the business’ address as the mailing address for their business license applications. And one only listed a home address for a couple months.

The oldest of the business licenses was issued in 2018.

While police didn’t arrest anyone in connection with the search of six businesses in May, Littrell said they are continuing the investigation. To date, none of the owners have been charged in Benton County in connection with an illegal massage business.

Muller-Tabanera said the increase in storefronts are generally driven by an environment that is ripe for exploitation.

The stores open in areas where they see a low level of oversight and where people often dismiss the businesses as harmless or unimportant.

How to combat it

While police are working to shut down the businesses they find, the owners can just as easily open another store front, Muller-Tabanera said.

That’s because regulations generally make it easy to open new businesses, he said.

When Kennewick business owners apply with Washington state for a business license, they automatically apply with the city as well, Evelyn Lusignan, said the city’s public relations and customer service manager.

About 6,800 licenses that have city of Kennewick endorsements are processed through the Department of Revenue.

Normally the only review done by the city in those cases is to make sure the area is zoned for the type of business that is being conducted.

City officials are hoping a new set of regulations will help police spot a problem shop sooner. The restrictions limit the hours massage businesses can be opened, along with setting other requirements.

The rules go into effect in September, and Lusignan told the Herald, police are planning to have regular inspections of massage businesses to make sure there is a licensed therapist on site.

It hasn’t been decided how often police will be going out, but they will be making sure everyone working has a massage therapist license from the state Department of Health, she said.

The first violation could result in a maximum sentence of three months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Each subsequent violation, including those that happen at the same time as the first violation, could be punished with a maximum sentence of up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

In addition the person holding the city business license would have to give up their Kennewick-issued massage or reflexology business licenses if they are found in District Court to have violated the city code, and they could not reapply.