A mother and son duo, Shaoping Wen and Xu Wang, were handed down sentences for running illicit massage parlors across Texas and New Mexico, acting as fronts for a commercial sex trade. The news released by the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Chad E. Meacham, on Tuesday, was reported by the Justice Department .

In the previous year, a federal indictment charged Wen, 65, and Wang, 42, with conspiracy to commit interstate travel and racketeering enterprises aid, among other related offenses. Court documents, which were published yesterday, disclose that Wen owned no fewer than seven massage parlors, and Wang ran them in her absence. Painted by investigative findings, these establishments masqueraded as legitimate venues while harboring sex trafficking underpinnings. Indicting a landscape where Asian women exchanged illegal commercial sex, these establishments have since been revealed as the tragic theaters of despair they were.

Both entered guilty pleas in November 2024: Wen pled to the conspiracy charge, and Wang to misprision of a felony. Wen's sentence includes a 12-month and one-day stint in federal prison plus a term of supervised release for one year. Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk also ordered Wen to forfeit nearly $292,000 in cash and pay a hefty money judgment of over $1.7 million to the United States. Wang, on the other hand, received a sentence equivalent to time served—exactly 362 days—and will similarly endure a year under supervised release.

Undercover operations spanned from June 2023 to February 2024, revealing disturbing details. According to the justice department's documents , officers purchased massages, only to be propositioned for sex by lingerie-clad women, communication often facilitated through translation apps. Arrested workers claimed Chinese citizenship, described only as "laborer" in occupation, with Wen or Wang occasionally posting their cash bonds. Living conditions were stark, as the locations searched yielded beds on massage parlor floors—homes to the women ensnared in this operation, never leaving the places they both worked and resided.

Advertised brazenly on known commercial sex platforms, the massage parlors beckoned with promises of "100% sexy" girls and experiences commonly masked by euphemistic labels, such as the "girlfriend experience." In Texas and New Mexico, where prostitution remains illegal, these ads were the glint of false hope to some but the dark lures of exploitation to the eyes trained to see such things. As part of the crackdown, extensive evidence was collected during March 2024 searches that included a glaring amount of currency likely generated from the illegal operation and suspicious casino activities tied back to Wen, revealing a laundering side business through gambling chips.

The wide-reaching investigation leading to these sentences involved a litany of agencies, from the FBI's Dallas Field Office and Homeland Security Investigations to local Texas and New Mexico law enforcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Callie Woolam conducted the prosecution.