This story has been updated to include new information.
A Chinese national accused of leading an international human trafficking ring involving commercial sex at illicit massage parlors in Macomb County will be sentenced in September, according to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.
Jingyu Jin, 46, pleaded no contest to one count of conducting criminal enterprises in Macomb County Circuit Court on Tuesday, July 21, according to online court and jail records. Jin, who is being held in the county jail on a $1 million bond, is to be sentenced Sept. 3.
The circuit judge is ordering a Korean interpreter be present in person for sentencing, according to online court records. They indicate a sentencing agreement of 40 months to 20 years in prison with five other charges to be dismissed.
Jin’s attorney, Elias Muawad, said Wednesday, July 22, that “the plea was designed to give her some incarceration to make sure she doesn’t do this again, but not a ton where she had to make the decision of going to trial.” He said Jin is “glad to have it done and over with,” will carry out her prison term and will face a hurdle with immigration. He said she has family in New York.
Jin was the owner and operator of two illicit massage parlors, 111 Healing Studio in St. Clair Shores and AM Healing Studio in Sterling Heights, according to a release from the attorney general’s office.
Jin and four others were charged in December 2024 after an investigation involving local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Numerous women of Chinese and Korean origin were freed from the trafficking group, the attorney general’s office said.
Attorney General Dana Nessel said in the release that the illicit operation “was one of the largest forced commercial sex enterprises ever uncovered in our state, trapping numerous victims who were trafficked across an ocean directly into our communities.”
In December 2024, her office announced the arrests in connection to the ring at the two illicit massage parlors in Macomb County as well as parlors in Detroit and Highland Park. The investigation began in the summer of 2024, according to the state agency.
Another Chinese national, Huazi Piao, 62, was sentenced in October to 40 months to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conducting criminal enterprises, according to the attorney general’s office.
She was sentenced in Wayne County Circuit Court after being accused of operating commercial sex operations at illicit massage parlors in Wayne County. She is being held at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility near Ypsilanti, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections website.
Cases against three others charged by the state in the investigation are pending in various courts in Wayne and Macomb counties. They include: Jon Villasurda, then 60, of Clinton Township; Oumar Lougue, 55, a non-citizen from West Africa, and Ming Li, then 59, an undocumented immigrant, according to the attorney general’s office and online court records.
Another person included in a prior Free Press story on the matter, Michael Navoy, 71, of Allen Park, was sentenced in September to 2 to 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to prostitution/accepting earnings in Wayne County Circuit Court.
The county prosecutor’s office said he was involved in human trafficking and prostitution operating out of a Southgate home he owned. It said Michigan State Police were assisting in a human trafficking investigation in Maumee, Ohio, involving him in October 2024. He is housed in the Central Michigan Correctional Facility in St. Louis in Gratiot County, according to online prison records.
Contact Christina Hall: chall@freepress.com. Follow her on X: @challreporter.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Leader of human trafficking ring at massage parlors pleads no contest
Reporting by Christina Hall, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Christina Hall, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
