IN-DEPTH: 'Operation Red Light'

SPOKANE, Wash. - For months, Operation Redlight was a secret.
The year-long investigation into prostitution in Spokane came to a head on
Tuesday when local and federal agencies raided eight "day spas" and "massage
parlors", which police believe were front organizations for widespread
prostitution rings.

At noon on Tuesday, law enforcement - led by the Airway Heights
Police Department - simultaneously raided Oriental Spa North at 827 E. Francis Ave., its
sister location Oriental Spa South on 515 S. Maple St., Joe Jean's Oriental
Health Spa at 2712 N. Division St, Asian Spa at 3130 N. Division St., Starlite
Spa at 2829 N. Market St., Absolute Spa at 9315 E. Trent Ave., Montana Spa at
7413 E. Trent Ave., and Far East Spa on 213 E. Sprague.

The owners of these spas also had their homes raided and many
were arrested including co-owners of Oriental Spa North Tony Day, 36, and his
mother, Chin Day, 68. Police also arrested 62-year-old Joe Jean's owner Yong C.
Kassim; 59-year-old Starlite owner Insuk Argo; and 27-year-old Absolute Spa
owner Jessica Vargas. Vargas resides in Moses Lake.

The suspects face charges of money laundering, criminal
profiteering, and prostitution. They are on a 72-hour hold until prosecutors
decide to press formal charges.

Police said the search warrants were conducted based on a
year-long investigation into Prostitution, Promoting Prostitution, Money
Laundering, Criminal Profiteering, and Controlled Substances. Not only did
police seize several items inside the spas for evidence but they also seized
items the suspects bought using funds from the illegal activities.

In a news conference Tuesday, Airway Heights Police Chief Lee
Bennett said the investigation began a year ago when Kalispel Tribal police
believed women were soliciting men for sex inside the Northern Quest Resort and
Casino in Airway Heights.

Tribal Police tipped off Airway Heights Police who then
conducted undercover strings of suspected prostitutes. Bennett said police
pretended to be "Johns" and arranged to meet the suspected prostitutes at Northern
Quest but later arrested them after they proposed to offer sex acts in exchange
for money.

In a key moment in the investigation, many of those suspected
prostitutes agreed to work as confidential informants for Airway Heights PD. In
turn, the women spilled many of their secrets about the dark underbelly of the
prostitution world in Spokane, which police admittedly had struggled to
investigate in the past without their help. In many past cases, the website ads
required references about johns from other prostitutes, a barrier police
struggled to get around.

Before long, Bennett said, police were able to confirm that
women were "cyber pimping": pre-arranging meetings with johns on websites that
advertised erotic services like www.backpage.com and www.spokaneboard.com where
they would then meet with the johns for sex acts at Northern Quest hotel rooms.
The websites were regularly linked to the so-called spas, Bennett
said.

"When we first started looking into it, there was approximately
40 to 50 women," Bennett said. "It looks, now, we maybe have upwards of 200 or
250 girls that cycle through the spas."

The woman ranged in age from 20 to 40 years old and made upwards
of $6,000 a month while some of the businesses earn about $10,000, Bennett
said.

Undercover officers then went in to individual spas checking for
evidence of prostitution and other crimes.

"As far as we can tell, we did not find any typical massage-type
equipment in these spas," Bennett continued. "We don't think anybody is going
for a legitimate massage. We believe these are for prostitution."

Bennett said they have not found any minors, women being held
against their will, or a human trafficking element but said that could be a
possibility as the investigation continues.

Bennett also said one undercover officer was the victim of an
attempted robbery by one of the prostitutes he'd met.

"There's probably lot of robberies or other issues that are
going on that are not reported," Bennett said. "It's all criminal
based."

While the investigation was led by the Airway Heights Police
Department, it also included the Kalispel Tribal Police, Washington State
Gambling Commission, Homeland Security Investigations, US Border Patrol, United
States Marshals, Spokane County Sheriff's Office, Spokane Valley Police
Department, Spokane Police Department, Liberty Lake Police Department and the
Cheney Police Department.

KHQ'S CIA INVESTIGATION INTO ORIENTAL
SPAS::

But on Tuesday at noon, local
and federal agencies raided Oriental Spa North and its sister location Oriental Spa South . Both Tony and Chin Day are in the Spokane County Jail as part of
the wide-ranging prostitution bust.

KHQ's Chelsea Kopta began investigating Oriental Spa and specifically Tony and Chin Day nearly a year
ago after KHQ was contacted by a viewer claiming illegal activities were going
on inside their business.

Were they a front for a prostitution ring? We went to find
out.

At the time, the building was rundown, the windows were boarded
up, the front doors were locked, but if you looked closer, you could see that
Oriental Spa was open for business day and night.

We knocked on the back door entrance and spoke to a women who
identified herself at Chin, the owner and manager. She she refused to show her
face so from behind a cracked door, she answered our questions about alleged
prostitution, backdoor deals, and sex acts. She denied any wrong
doing.

KHQ then took our questions to Chin's son and co-owner, Tony
Day. He also denied wrongdoing and fervently believed any claims to the contrary
were the result of ex-employees looking to tarnish the company's
name.

At the time. KHQ brought its concerns to the Spokane
Police Chief at the time, Anne Kirkpatrick. She called some of these so-called
spas organized
prostitution rings.

So why weren't they investigating?

The former Chief gave three reasons. First, she drew a hard line
between prostitutes who work behind closed doors and those on the streets.
Secondly, she believed organized crime was much harder to fight. "Although I am
not unmindful of the other type of organized prostitution, I also have to rely
on other agencies that do organized crime, to help with that."

Finally, she believed prostitution was a
victimless crime.

Tuesday, with a suspected prostitution raid blown wide open
involving eight local spas, countless johns an prostitutes, KHQ went back to
Spokane PD. While there are several factors when prioritizing crime in the city,
Major Craig Meidl said Spokane Police prioritizes violent crimes with "real
victims" over prostitution between two typically consenting adults.

"What is boils down to is when
you have something of that magnitude where all the parties are willingly engaging in these
activities and then you have these other crimes where you have a true victim and
you only have limited resources to work those, you still, you prioritize those
based on those logistics," Meidl said. "In this case, Airway Heights (Police)
did all the footwork on it and they basically were ready to go and they
basically said were ready to go and said 'will you guys help us out? We don't
have the staffing work these.'"

Major Meidl also believed Airway Heights PD had a leg-up on the
prostitution investigation since they were able to work with confidential
informants, something Spokane Police had not been able to use in the
past.