2/24/2021
A Thai citizen who authorities say played a key role in orchestrating an international sex trafficking ring appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Minnesota this week on a new 10-count indictment.
Sumalee Intarathong, 59, served as “boss/trafficker” in a criminal organization that sent hundreds of women from Bangkok to prostitution houses in the United States and compelled them to perform sex acts for money, according to federal prosecutors.
The group, which had a base in Queens, used beatings and forced abortions to ensure the women continued working in brothels from Alabama to Connecticut, shipping cash they earned back to Mexico, federal prosecutors wrote in court filings.
The women were lured into romantic relationships through “false promises of love and support,” prosecutors wrote, and often not allowed to contact their families after being taken into homes of the traffickers in Tenancingo.
A message was sent to Hernandez-Velazquez’s defense attorney seeking comment.
Hernandez-Velazquez was arrested in Mexico in August and extradited to the United States on Wednesday. He faces at least 15 years in prison if convicted.
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