SALEM, Mass. — Three people have been arrested on human trafficking and prostitution charges after police busted several Salem businesses suspected of being brothels.
Peter Leavitt, 57, and Fang Liu, 52, both of Peabody, and Barry St. Onge, 64, of Shrewsbury, are each charged with trafficking of a person for sexual servitude, deriving support from prostitution, and keeping a house of prostitution, police said in a statement on Wednesday.
Following their arraignments in a local courtroom, Onge was held on $250,000 bail. Leavitt and Fang were each held on $35,000 bail. Fang also has to surrender her passport if she makes bail.
The suspected brothels advertised ”bodywork," “reflexology,” and “spa” services, investigators said.
“We see this as much a rescue operation as it is a criminal investigation. The exploitation of victims of human trafficking will not be tolerated in the city of Salem,” Salem Police Chief Lucas Miller said in a statement.
Over the past three months, detectives assigned to the Salem Police Criminal Investigation Division conducted an extensive investigation into suspected human trafficking and prostitution-related activities at several businesses in Salem, Miller said.
On April 17, detectives working with officers from the Community Impact Unit and the department’s Victim Services Unit executed multiple search warrants at local businesses.
These included locations at 133 Boston St., operating as “New Custom Body Work,” and 116A Boston St., operating as “Red Rose Reflexology.”
A Yelp listing for Red Rose Reflexology advertises various massage services, including “VIP Custom Bodywork.”
“Human trafficking involves the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of individuals for the purposes of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation,“ police said in their statement. ”Perpetrators engage in these criminal enterprises to profit from the exploitation of victims."
“The Salem Police Department emphasizes that individuals involved in these situations are regarded as victims and are treated accordingly throughout the investigative process,” police said.
The investigation included assistance from the Massachusetts State Police Human Trafficking Division within the Attorney General’s Office, the Essex County District Attorney’s Office, and the Essex County Sheriff’s Department, Miller said.
The bust in Salem happened one year after the names of alleged sex buyers of a high-end brothel ring in Massachusetts became public.
The brothels were run out of buildings in Cambridge, Dedham, Watertown, and Virginia.
A former Cambridge City Councilor and a former Massachusetts General Hospital oncologist were among the alleged brothel customers from Massachusetts and New Hampshire identified in court.
In November 2023, authorities arrested Han Lee, Junmyung Lee, and James Lee on charges of running a commercial sex network in Watertown, Cambridge, and Virginia, where buyers paid up to $600 per hour for a wide array of advertised sex acts.
Han Lee, the leader of the interstate commercial sex ring, was sentenced in 2025 to four years in prison followed by one year of supervised release.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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