Quincy woman sentenced for sex trafficking in Western Mass.
The state attorney general called Feng Ling Liu’s operation a “profitable and organized criminal enterprise.”
A Quincy woman was sentenced to five years in state prison on a slew of charges related to trafficking women for sex in Western Massachusetts, according to a Wednesday statement from state Attorney General Maura Healey.
Healey’s office alleged Feng Ling Liu, 53, used “illicit massage and bodyworks establishments” as fronts for human trafficking. The statement called Liu’s operation a “profitable and organized criminal enterprise.”
Liu recruited women, advertised sexual services online, and arranged for her victims’ transportation, according to Healey. The women lived in the businesses and relied on Liu for groceries, transportation, and other basic needs.
Healey said Liu charged a fee for the services and kept most of the profit, which she spent on her business, travel, jewelry, and cars.
She apparently trafficked the women between New York and Western Massachusetts. Specific storefronts included Hadley Massage Therapy in Hadley, Feng Health Center in East Longmeadow, and Massage Body Work in Framingham.
“Traffickers like this defendant continue to use illicit bodyworks establishments as fronts for criminal activity,” Healey said in the statement. “This illegal business model needs to be disrupted and we’ll continue to fight human trafficking in all its forms.”
Liu was arrested in December 2016 after an investigation into her operations. She was indicted by a statewide grand jury in February 2017.
She pleaded guilty to three counts of trafficking persons for sexual servitude, three counts of conspiracy to traffic persons for sexual servitude, three counts of transacting in laundered money, three counts of deriving support from prostitution, and three counts of keeping a house of ill fame.
