Doors of three Joplin massage parlors locked amid investigation - Joplin Globe

[massage]

A few times a day, the owner of a neighboring business took cigarette breaks outside her shop's backdoor, facing an alley off Main Street. For almost six months, she saw men park their cars and walk across the alley, ducking into a black door with one small, heavily tinted window beneath a printed banner that reads "Royal Massage."

Sometimes, she said, her presence in the alley prompted the men to immediately turn back to their cars and leave. Suspicion ultimately built to the point that she notified Joplin police. Officers, she said, acknowledged that a prostitution probe was underway and urged patience.

In late January, various law enforcement agents arrived at the business, and the neighbors haven't seen any signs of activity at Royal Massage since.

Three Joplin massage businesses appear to have been shut down after federal authorities, with the assistance of the Joplin Police Department, served search warrants at each on Jan. 25. A go-between officer employed by the JPD has cooperated with the Federal Bureau of Investigations in the probe, according to Capt. Rusty Rives.

"It was initially an FBI case that they asked for assistance with," Rives said regarding action against the three businesses. "And that assistance is primarily running through our task force officer who works for us, but is assigned to the FBI."

The businesses are Golden Massage, 1237 S. Range Line Road; Sunny Spa, 801 E. 15th St.; and Royal Massage, 1522 S. Main St.

An employee of a neighboring business to Golden Massage said various law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, also descended on that business on Jan. 25, and its doors have been locked to the public since. During an interview Monday, an individual was observed attempting to enter Golden Massage, but left upon discovering the door was locked.

According to business licenses filed with the city of Joplin, the owner of both Royal Massage and Sunny Spa is Bifen Lu. Lu has a home address in San Gabriel, California. The owner of Golden Massage, according to the Missouri Secretary of State Office’s website, is Megan Coy. Coy, who has a home address in Nixa, is also listed with the Secretary of State’s Office as a registered agent of Sunny Spa. No contact numbers were available for the owners.

All three businesses, and four others located in Joplin, have online advertisements offering various massage services. Six of the seven have ads posted on the online classified website Backpage.com, which faced criticism recently from the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. There is no indication that the other four businesses with ads on Backpage were a part of the original investigation and were not served search warrants on Jan. 25 when the other three were.

The Senate subcommittee’s hearing came after it released a two-year study into sex trafficking practices, which eventually focused on Backpage.

Backpage’s website includes sections for ads offering jobs, workshops, furniture and other miscellaneous categories, much like the popular online marketplace Craigslist. But Backpage’s site also included a section labeled “adult,” offering “escorts, body rubs, strippers and strip clubs.”

The “adult” section on Backpage’s website has subsequently been shut down, but the Joplin massage businesses have ads posted under a “Joplin services” section of the site. None of the advertisements explicitly mention sexual acts, but several make reference to “pretty and hot” or “sweet and young Asian girls.” Several of the ads include photos of women in lingerie.

“We choose only the best girls to provide you the best service,” a Backpage ad for Golden Massage reads. “New, young, lovely, friendly, Asian girls for your choice, allow us to provide the best relaxing pleasure experience session. You will be happy with young cute girls, 100 percent guaranteed. Life too short, you deserve to spoil yourself with ultimate pleasure relaxing session. Sensual pleasure and total satisfaction, period. One-hundred percent satisfied non-rushed fun time. Leave with big smile. All lovely and beautiful staff. Don’t be shy.”

Such suggestive language was one subject of the Senate subcommittee’s report. The report alleged that Backpage covered up wrongdoing by deleting incriminating words from advertisements.

A message submitted to Backpage through the site's communication portal for advertisers was not returned. No other contact information for the site or its administrators is provided.

Each Joplin massage business with ads on Backpage also has been reviewed by anonymous posters on a website called the Escort Client Community Information, or ECCIE.net, which calls itself “the fastest growing escort review website.” Users must register with an account name in order to post on ECCIE.

Royal Massage, Sunny Spa and Golden Massage all have at least one review from different users. The reviews all provide links to the three businesses’ Backpage ads, as well as addresses and phone numbers, all of which are consistent with the city and state documents for the three. In an Internet shorthand described on multiple websites that purport to serve as guides for customers of massage parlors that sell sexual services, the reviews describe sexual acts performed at the businesses.

The reviews also include how much the person paid, the length of the “session,” an often sexual description of a woman’s physical appearance, whether the poster would recommend the “provider,” and a date the visit occurred. One review of Golden Massage detailed a visit as recent as Jan. 6.

More recent posts on ECCIE discuss the circumstances of Jan. 25 and the investigation. Posters indicate that Royal Massage, Golden Massage and Sunny Spa have all been shut down. One such post dated Jan. 27 says a user had recently seen JPD officers at Golden Massage.

Spokespersons for the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Missouri have not responded to requests for comment. The Globe has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI for probable cause affidavits or search warrants related to the businesses.


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