(ABC NEWS) The women were forced to live and work in filth and near darkness, the federal agent said, surviving on only the tips they received from performing massages and sexual favors.
Lon Weigand, deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Arizona, described them as “Asian females” who may be sex-trafficking victims. He praised the joint operation between federal agents and local police in western Arizona that led to their rescue and credited “investigative techniques” with helping to crack a “transnational criminal organization.”
What Weigand didn’t say at that September 2018 press conference – although HSI documents show some supervisors knew – was that federal undercover agents repeatedly paid for and engaged in sex acts with suspected victims.