Brothel kingpin pleads guilty
Andrea Weigl
Staff Writer, The News Observer
Dec 16, 2005

A Wake County brothel operator's guilty plea in federal court Thursday offered new details about a sex-trafficking ring that shipped prostitutes from Georgia to New York.

Out-of-state women and teenagers -- including a 14-year-old girl -- were either recruited here or brought into North Carolina to work at brothels. Almost a dozen defendants across the state have been prosecuted as a result of the investigation, which began in November 2003 when police found two women bound and gagged in the trunk of a car in Monroe, southeast of Charlotte.

In court Thursday, federal prosecutors explained that Valente Chavez Sanchez ran three brothels in Wake and Harnett counties and arranged with another man to get new prostitutes each week in Greensboro, which was a central exchange spot. The women were mainly Mexicans who were in the United States illegally.

Each brothel generated about $100,000 in income per year, prosecutors revealed. Prostitutes were paid on average $750 a week. The brothel charged customers $25 for 15 minutes with a prostitute. Armed bodyguards made sure customers did not exceed their time limit.

Sanchez, 33, of Raleigh, pleaded guilty to federal charges of sex trafficking a minor and transporting women for prostitution across state lines. He was charged in October, along with two others, in connection with the three brothels -- one each in Raleigh Lillington and outside Fuquay-Varina.

Prosecutors said Sanchez and his co-defendants recruited children in Eastern North Carolina and elsewhere to work as prostitutes. In 2003, Sanchez paid a 14-year-old girl for her work as a prostitute and told her to tell police nothing if she ever was arrested, prosecutors said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Banumathi Rangarajan said Sanchez worked with Priciliano Mora-Bueno, who has been prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Greensboro for transporting prostitutes from New York, Maryland and New Jersey.

Every Sunday evening, a new group of prostitutes was driven to Greensboro. On the way, Mora-Bueno would contact brothel operators, such as Sanchez, to see if they wanted to exchange prostitutes, the prosecutor said.

Sanchez would pay $130 to Mora-Bueno for each prostitute, Rangarajan said. Sanchez used Mora-Bueno's services about 20 times beginning in 2002, she said.

The men were arrested along with 14 prostitutes who had traveled south to work in Charlotte, Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Durham, Monroe and South Carolina, records and news accounts say.

All five men have been convicted and sentenced. Mora-Bueno is being held by federal authorities as a witness in the case against Sanchez and his co-defendants.

Three other men have been prosecuted for kidnapping in connection with a traffic stop that led Monroe police to find two women bound with duct tape and gagged in the trunk of a car outside a grocery store in November 2003, according to the Charlotte Observer.

The victims told police that they were held against their will at a Monroe home, according to the news accounts. One of the women was kidnapped at gunpoint, the stories said.