By: Glenn Harbison, glenn@fanninbasincitizen.com 

Many local residents might wonder how human trafficking might be happening here in Fannin County. Yet Illicit Massage Businesses (IMBs) are often fronts for illegal activity and there are an estimated 7,500 to 9.000 operating in the United States, according to Polaris, a non-governmental organization fighting the activity 

Polaris ranks Georgia with a high concentration of IMBs, similar to Florida, California, New York and Pennsylvania. 

Fannin County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Dustin Carder explained the complexities of these operations, why investigations take so long, and why the traffickers themselves are difficult to prosecute. 

Legitimate massage therapy requires a license, one that is hard to obtain in Georgia. It comes with required, continued training. 

These professional therapists are often referred clients by doctors and may even accept payments through insurance carriers, Carder says. 

The idea of massage therapy opens the door for prostitutes who set up illegal “massage parlors.” These IMBs are often fronts for human and sex trafficking, and money laundering in addition to prostitution. 

According to Deliverfund, connecting IMBs and human trafficking is difficult since they advertise themselves as legitimate businesses. Instead, they are skillfully organized around a complexity of sex trafficking, labor trafficking, conspiracy, immigration fraud and money laundering. 

The difficulty in recognizing the IMBs makes small communities perfect locations, Carder says. 

For example, an IMB owner will often have two or more locations, or even be part of a larger network of IMBs. 

Girls will be moved between locations, usually every three to four weeks and sometimes as often as every ten days, Carder says. This keeps them from knowing where they are, making contact with anyone who could help them, or developing any kind of trusting relationships. 

IMB owners often tell the girls they have the local police paid off so if anything happens they, and not the owner/trafficker, will be arrested. The victims are further controlled by being forced to live in the IMBs where they work, completely shutting them off from the outside world. 

These factors combine to make prosecuting the traffickers/recruiters almost impossible, Carder says, because victims will not cooperate with law enforcement authorities. 

The IMBs routinely employ vulnerable, foreign born nationals, most often from China,South Korea or Mexico/Central America. They are often poorly educated and speak little or no English. While some are recruited and brought to the United States from foreign countries, others are recruited from larger American cities with concentrations of foreign populations. 

Recruiters offer them a better life with financial opportunities, but mislead them in the type of work they will be doing. 

The victims, who Carder describes as often single mothers in their mid-30s to late 50s, are controlled through a complex mixture of cultural manipulation, fraud and coercion. Many often carry debts, are under extreme financial pressure, or threatened with harm to their child or families. 

Those who are brought to the United States from other countries have their passports taken away. 

Once working in the IMBs, these victims are paid just a sliver of the $60 or more the client pays for an hour long massage. The majority of the money goes to the traffickers/recruiters. 

The victims are allowed to keep tips that come through illegal means. The traffickers then force their victims to use this tip money to pay their housing costs, alleged travel/ recruiting debts, food expenses and even purchase their own condoms. If there is any money left, the victims can send it back to their families. 

Polaris estimates the average IMB will net around $250,000 a year. 

Law enforcement, supported by several national organizations, is determined to stop human trafficking. 

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation Human Exploitation and Trafficking (HEAT) Unit was created in July 2020 to focus on commercial sex trafficking and labor trafficking, and the safe recovery of trafficking victims. The unit’s Special Agents work closely with local, state and federal authorities to battle these crimes, while relying on several 

non-governmental organizations who specialize in providing services to victims of human trafficking. 

It is estimated there are 1.5 million human trafficking victims in the United States, most of whom are children. 

Help from the public is critical in this fight, Carder says. “If you see something, say something,” he says. Contact the Fannin County Sheriff’s Office at 706-632-2044, the statewide 24-hour, Georgia Coalition to Combat Human Trafficking Tip Line at 1-866-363-4842 or the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888.