A sophisticated Manhattan-based prostitution ring that offered “one-stop shopping” and delivered both drugs and debauchery was sacked just days before the Super Bowl.
“Always a treat and always fast to your door,” Asian Wave Escorts promised in sexy come-ons broadcast on public access TV, sources said.
The ring was headed by a middle-aged madam named Hyun Ok Yoonung, a 41-year-old Korean immigrant who officials said is something of a legend in the flesh-peddling business.
“She was really the leader,” Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Thursday. “This is someone we’ve heard of from other criminals, really sort of admiring the scope of her enterprise. She’s well known in this industry.”
Code-named “Beige,” the madam was arrested at her Long Island home while police were rounding up the 17 other alleged members of the ring in overnight raids.
“We have identified in the last year more than $3 million in credit card charges related to this enterprise,” Schneiderman said. “Keep in mind that most johns pay cash, so that is a staggering number for an enterprise like this.”
In recent weeks, Schneiderman said, Hyun Ok Yoonung had been ramping-up to tap the wallets of “high rollers” bound for Sunday’s big game.
“They had a huge increase in their text messages to people coming in from out of town, saying, ‘We’ve updated our girls, new and sexy girls for you’,” said Schneiderman. “It was a very aggressive push.”
Several of the alleged hookers were nabbed when police used battering rams to burst into an apartment at 990 Sixth Ave. that is just blocks away from “Super Bowl Boulevard.”
The women, who also were mostly from Korea, serviced their johns in the single bedroom, where cocaine, crack pipes and Viagra was found, officials said.
“A one-stop shopping drug and prostitution ring,” Police Commissioner William Bratton called it.
One of the tenants in the Sixth Ave. building is The King’s College, a Christian undergraduate university that houses some of its students there — and which had no idea it was a den of sin.
More “girls” were operating from an apartment at 207 E. 37th St., police said. And the nerve center of the operation was another pad at 148 E. 30th St.
Now some of the women in police custody are claiming they were forced into prostitution and are cooperating, sources said.
“They brought in new girls every three months,” Schnidermann said.
The prostitutes identified in court papers were no spring chickens. They ranged in age from 26 to 56 and four of them were in their 40s.
They also weren’t just turning trucks. Sun Lee Ahn, the 56-year-old police dubbed Sarah, also allegedly booked dates and ferried drugs, sources said.
The bust was the culmination of a yearlong probe by Schneiderman’s Organized Crime Task Force and the NYPD dubbed “Operation out of Bounds.”
The ring specialized in “party-packs,” where johns were enticed to buy cocaine and other drugs to go along with the sex.
In some cases, authorities said, the greedy ring took advantage of wasted customers by charging them upward of $10,000 for a single booking.
Using undercover investigators, cops discovered that Hyun Ok Yoonung was running a sophisticated operation divided into three groups. She herself headed the “Butterfly Group,” the complaint states.
Her chief co-conspirators were identified in the documents as Young Ok Tae, a 38-year-old code named “Tae,” and Kyung Chun Min, 33, dubbed “Nicky” by cops.
The other alleged hooker bookers were identified as Young Mi Lee, 40, dubbed “Jasmine” by investigators, and In Suk Cho, 49, referred to as “HyoJung” in court papers.
The gang’s “Gold VIP group” was led by Hajoung Heath, 40, aka “Dada.” And the head of the “Jackie group” was identified as 44-year-old Kyong Bin Cho, aka “Jackie,” the papers state.
The drugs were allegedly supplied by 34-year-old Tony Yoo and Joseph Landrum, 32, the papers state.
“Cocaine was referred to as ‘jewelry’ or ‘Soojaebi,’ which is a Korean noodle and vegetables soup,” said Schneiderman.
The arrested prostitutes were identified as: Young Mi Lee, 40, Jung Hee Jang, 43, Haiming Quan, 41, Nina Kim, 31, Hada Jang, 26, He Jung Chern, 42, Ji Young Moon, 40, and Janice Lee, 40.
All 18 are charged with conspiracy and several “underlying crimes,” including narcotics sales, promoting prostitution and money laundering, the AG’s office said.
Schneiderman said the flesh-peddlers rigged it so customers could pay by credit card.
“These people had a phony clothes wholesaler, a phony wig wholesaler, a limo service and a dating service that would show up on peoples credit card bills,” Schnidermann said. “They used these businesses to hide their illegal transactions and launder millions of dollars in proceeds.”
