US prosecutors on Wednesday charged three people with running a chain of luxury brothels from apartment complexes in Boston and Northern Virginia, whose clients included politicians, tech and pharmaceutical company executives, lawyers, professors and military officers, Reuters reported, citing News.ro. .

The Justice Department said Wednesday it is investigating politicians, military officers and government contractors for buying sex through the luxury brothel chain that operated in Massachusetts and the Washington suburbs.

Authorities said they believe the brothel chain may have had hundreds of customers who, acting federal prosecutor Josh Levy said, “often paid a monthly fee to participate in this illegal club.”

According to prosecutors, clients included executives of pharmaceutical and technology companies, doctors, teachers, lawyers, company executives, scientists and financiers. Federal prosecutors in Boston have not identified any of the “wealthy, well-connected clients” they say paid up to $600 an hour to have sex with the mostly Asian women who were exploited through the sex trade.

The alleged leaders of these brothels – Han Lee, 41, and Joonmyun Lee, 30, of Massachusetts, and James Lee, 68, of California – were arrested and charged with conspiracy to force and induce women to travel for illegal sexual activities. .

The prostitution ring required clients to verify their identity

Prosecutor Levy said the investigation is “just beginning” and that law enforcement agencies are gathering more evidence after executing search warrants in Massachusetts, Virginia and California. Those raids included active brothels and turned up financial records, money and women believed to be engaged in prostitution, according to court documents.

“We are committed to working closely with our federal, state and local partners to bring to justice both those who operated this network and those who fueled the demand for this network,” Levy said at a news conference.

According to charging documents, the defendants, led by Han Lee, used luxury apartment complexes as brothels in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, and Fairfax and Tyson, Virginia. The two websites advertised dating Asian women, and customers were subject to a verification process that included providing driver’s license photos and employer names, prosecutors said.

The US government seized the domains of these sites. Tysons, where one of the brothels is believed to be located, is a 30-minute drive from Washington, DC. It is the center of the technological and defense sectors of Washington, writes POLITICO.

In an affidavit, a Department of Homeland Security agent said he believed there were “potentially hundreds of customers who have not yet been identified” but who used the network.

The agent said cellphone location data, physical surveillance, financial data and customer surveys were used to find information about the alleged brothel network.