In Federal Court last week, five South Koreans were convicted of running a sex-trafficking ring to  staff their brothels across the Northeast.  The case again demonstrates the interconnectedness of the illicit market once again.

According to prosecutors, the trafficking ring found women in South Korea who wanted to move to the United States and either smuggled them in through Canada or Mexico or provided them with false immigration documents.

The women would incur debts running into tens of thousands of dollars and would be forced to work as prostitutes to pay off their debts.

In this one case alone, the five individuals dealt with counterfeit passports and identifications, human smuggling that later turned into human trafficking, and prostitution.