Trick Rolls - Las Vegas Sun 11-4-09
This article was in a recent Las Vegas Sun on 11-4-09.
[URL]http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/nov/04/their-valuables-gone-their-ladies-night/[/URL]
[B]Their valuables gone, like their ladies of the night[/B]
More than $2 million is likely be stolen in ’09 in ‘trick rolls’ in which a prostitute robs a client
By Abigail Goldman
Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Not even prostitution is immune to economics of supply, demand (12-14-2008)
Hawking erotic services? Craigslist now has your number (11-29-2008)
People in the company of Clark County prostitutes collectively reported having $1.4 million in cash and goods stolen from them during the first nine months of this year — dupes of a larceny genre better known to police as the “trick roll.”
By year’s end, it’s estimated the total reported losses will exceed $2 million — almost double last year’s total, and probably a fraction of the real amount.
How many people file police reports, after all, when their prostitutes disappoint?
Enough, at least, for Metro vice detectives to determine the problem is getting worse, and assign two detectives to trick roll investigations exclusively. They’ve gotten roughly one case every day this year. In 2007 it was more like one a week.
That increase could have something to do with the economy. Fewer tourists with less money means supply exceeds demand. Prices drop and competition ratchets up for prostitutes, many of whom police say must meet nightly quotas set by pimps. Metro Sgt. Donald Hoier, though, says the problem picked up before the economy fell, simply because Clark County was saturated with sex workers and outlets for illicit entertainment.
When everybody scrambles for the same pool of money, bad seeds take short cuts.
Consider the reported losses Hoier reads from a list of cases: $10,000 in cash, casino chips and a laptop; $30,000 in cash and chips; $20,000 Rolex; $6,000 Rolex; $5,000 cash; and — perhaps the most interesting, a case Hoier can only hint at — $175,000 in casino chips.
These are preposterous amounts, which is probably why they were reported in the first place.
Sometimes these are crimes of opportunity. A watch is left out, a laptop is folded in the corner.
But there are prostitutes for whom sex is only a pretext to theft, and others who have no intention of sleeping with their clients, Hoier said. They know how to exploit angles and mirrors to see safe codes being punched, while others, Hoier says, actually become good at identifying the tones assigned to each number on the key pads.
“While he’s in the shower,” Hoier says, “she’s taking everything.”
Drugs are slipped into drinks. Clients are escorted to ATMs for payment, only to find their cards have been stolen by someone who surreptitiously saw the pin number. Two women come to one room and run lewd tactical diversion.
But sometimes it’s just a matter of violence.
Prostitutes have pulled guns. Pimps, waiting nearby, Hoier says, have beaten people just shy of death.
All of this is easier to accomplish when the target fits a preferred profile: intoxicated and alone.
Susan Lopez, founder of the Las Vegas chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, a national group dedicated to sex workers’ rights, said the economy is definitely a factor in the uptick.
“There are a lot of transient sex workers who come here because they think it’s going to be more profitable,” she said, adding that it’s widely felt that “most of the people who are committing these infractions are pimped women, and women who answer to somebody.”
Women who steal from their clients give a shamed industry a bad name, Lopez said, much to the frustration of local, independent sex workers who take their occupations, and reputations, seriously.
At the same time, however, “the girls kind of feel like it’s the guy’s own stupid fault — when desperate and drunk people get together, they don’t have a good time.”
For the record, Hoier says, trick rolls happen everywhere. High- and low-end casinos, on the street when a prostitute brings a client down a dark alley, and outside strip clubs, when dancers go home with clients.
In one case, a couple having an affair in Las Vegas hired a prostitute. The female client later realized her engagement ring, purchased by her fiancee back home, was stolen.
In a different case, a woman approached local men in nightclubs, spent weeks getting to know them (and the layouts of their homes), then drugged them before executing high-dollar burglaries.
There’s often a gap between the theft and the time it’s discovered, which complicates things for police. Even when clients realize right away, prostitutes have vanished down access stairs and out emergency exits, avoiding notice or handing the goods off to someone else.
Getting people to come forward is another problem. To this end, police carefully explain, misdemeanor crimes, like soliciting a prostitute, only lead to an arrest when they occur in the presence of police. Other trick rolls are never categorized as such, because johns hide their real relationships to the thieves.
When cases are opened, they often reveal other related crimes. Lately, for example, trick rolls are feeding identity theft. Other times, thieving prostitutes lead vice detectives back to violent pimps.
“It happens more than you’d probably think,” Hoier said. “A lot of women would rather steal from these guys than work as prostitutes.”
Very small slice of revenge
Friend of mine was brought to a clip joint in Vegas by a cab driver.
Every couple of months he has called the cabbie at odd hours and says, "I'm at xxxxxxxx hotel and need a ride to xxxxxxxx strip club".
When the cabbie calls to say "Where are you?" he replies, "I'll be there in 15 minutes."
20 Arrested After Police Raid 3 Clubs.... aka "clip joints"
[url]http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/24531162/detail.html[/url]
Arrest report:
[url]http://www.fox5vegas.com/download/2010/0806/24543554.pdf[/url]
[url]http://www.8newsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=12926389[/url]
SWAT Team and Vice Detectives Raid Businesses
LAS VEGAS -- As the sun was coming up Wednesday morning, Las Vegas Metro's SWAT Team targeted three businesses police believe are scamming customers out of money, using sex as a selling point.
Investigators say
Club Exclusive II
Entyce
and Sensations
are all running the same scam -- employees are fooling customers into thinking they can pay for sex.
"Certainly, the illusion of what they're going to get when they get here is no mistake, otherwise we wouldn't have hundreds of men coming to these establishments and leaving disgruntled that they didn't get what they thought they were coming here for," said Metro Vice Lt. Karen Hughes.
Club Exclusive II was Metro's first stop. As with all of the business, they are licensed in Clark County and are suppose to be a reflexology establishment, which is the practice of massaging hands, feet and earlobes. But Lt. Hughes says that was just part of what was going on inside. She says the female employees would lure customers into thinking more was in store if they paid up.
"They're getting upsold into other rooms in order to see those kinds of acts become fulfilled. Those things never happened," said Hughes.
Instead, after they pay, police say a security guard, sometimes armed, forces them out.
"The victims were defrauded, coerced, robbed, beaten," said Metro Sgt. Lenny Larusso.
As SWAT was pulling away from Club Exclusive II, the alleged operator showed up and was quickly taken into custody. The Secretary of State's website lists the owner as James Buford.
It was a similar story at both Entyce and Sensations. Police made approximately 20 arrests. The suspects could face several charges, including racketeering, coercion, robbery and fraud.
Metro not only picked up the alleged operators of these businesses, but also the female workers. They say they are also going to go after the cab drivers responsible for bringing potential victims to places like Sensations.
"We've had as many in an hour -- 10 to 15 cabs come to some of these places," said Sgt. Larusso.
"They are in cahoots with the cab drivers. The cab drivers are getting kickbacks to bring victims here, sometimes as high as $180 per client," said Lt. Hughes.
Metro says as many as 100 taxi drivers could be arrested and or lose their license. Those arrests are expected in the coming weeks. The Taxicab Authority has also been working closely with Metro for this investigation.
For now, police hope these businesses never get to open back up.
"These businesses are a sham. They are here to take money without offering any legitimate service and we're hoping that their licenses are revoked," said Hughes.
