Five Maryland men have been arrested, accused of running a multistate prostitution ring that was uncovered after police investigated a deadly double-shooting in Annapolis two years ago. The group, including the reputed ringleader German de Jesus Ventura, 32, of Capitol Heights, were taken into custody last week after police raided stash houses in Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties, authorities said.
“This investigation is an excellent example of federal and local law enforcement working cooperatively to dismantle a criminal organization that used violence to ensure that their organization continued to profit from the exploitation of women,” said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge William Winter.
Police also charged with human trafficking Kerlin Esquivel-Fuentes, 23, Luis Reyes, 28, Isidro Jimenez-Sanchez, 32, and Wilbert Herrera-Aranda, 32.
All the defendants also are being charged with transporting individuals to engage in prostitution. All of the men are illegal immigrants.
The government alleges that Ventura ran numerous brothels around Maryland and threatened to use violence against competing pimps.
Esquivel-Fuentes, Jimenez-Sanchez and Herrera-Aranda helped run the brothels, advertising, making appointments for the prostitutes and collecting money. Reyes assisted in transporting the sex workers to the brothel locations, as well as purchasing supplies, prosecutors said.
According to the 45-page affidavit, the probe began in Sept. 13, 2008, after a man, Ricardo Rivas-Ramirez, was shot dead and a prostitute was wounded inside a vehicle.
The woman spent several weeks in a hospital and provided law enforcement with information into the human trafficking operations.
She admitted that she was a prostitute and had been brought on a bus from New York to work at an Annapolis brothel just one day earlier. She provided the police with a notebook that contained the numbers of the pimps.
Police said that Rivas-Ramirez had been bringing women down to Annapolis and he had been threatened by Ventura and Esquivel-Fuentes, who told him that the capital city was their territory.
The vehicle was processed for fingerprints and DNA, which came to a positive match to Esquivel-Fuentes, according to the affidavit.
As the investigation broadened, police uncovered several more brothels and investigated numerous attacks.
In March, ICE agents and police from D.C. and Easton, Md., Delaware and Virginia were brought in to investigate.
