FWPD undercover hits two massage parlors, but there are plenty more

FORT WAYNE, Ind. --You see them in suburban strip malls innocuously snuck in between coffee shops, offices, hair salons and phone stores.

They flourish partly because the businesses are quiet, hardly noticeable, except for the “open” sign  at odd hours of the night.

Xiongying Tang (left) and Hongland Li

Men in their 40s and 50s like to back up their huge pick-up trucks into the parking spot, thinking no one can see the license plate at the rear of the truck.

The Probable Cause saw one man at a massage parlor, yet to be raided, dart out of the business one morning and leap as quickly as he could into a massive truck. It was an easy leap for him after his session, and he accelerated his vehicle quickly front first.

Another patron of this particular parlor walked out into the brilliant afternoon sun one summer day, adjusting his khakis at the waist before he walked to his black Chevy Equinox. With his white hair and his blue button down shirt, he looked like he could be on a church board, the business-oriented member.

Where these women come from shouldn’t be difficult to figure out. For months, a car with California license plates parked outside this parlor, left and came back again. It doesn’t take much to think sex trafficking, does it?

The Fort Wayne Police Department Vice & Narcotics unit seems to be cracking down on these places for the moment. Maybe it’s because the women have Chinese names and could be undocumented. Perhaps in the current nation’s sweep of those called “illegal,” they’ve been targeted.

The Cozy Spa on Bluffton Road on the way to the airport was abruptly shut down by the Allen County Building Department in October.

Or, maybe, it’s because the number of complaints have become too numerous to ignore. After all, prostitution is not legal here and there’s no agency to regulate these women who offer hand jobs, b—w jobs and whatever else a client might demand. Would they even be in a position to refuse and who’s their master?

The Probable Cause inquired a few months ago and found that the local Board of Health has no jurisdiction. Try to find one of these places on the state business website and good luck.

It’s up to the police department to keep track of them.

Two different women at different “massage” businesses were arrested Wednesday (April 16) for prostitution.

Xiongying Tang, 65, at Harmony Massage, 918 Woodland Plaza Run probably wasn’t expecting to be taken down to lock-up on a prostitution charge. After all, when was the last time someone was charged with this crime in this county?

Harmony Massage is just off Coldwater Road before you get to the light at Dupont Road. It shares the strip mall with a restaurant, a nail salon and other businesses.

Although the time of day or night wasn’t included in the probable cause, Tang agreed to give the detective a hand job and grabbed the 80 bucks out of his hand as soon as he offered it, court docs say.

At the other end of the city, at 2517 Lower Huntington Rd. in a similar, perhaps less posh strip mall, another Vice & Narcotics officer at least got a massage before he made his arrest.

When he asked for a hand job, Honglan Li, 50, thought he meant a b—w job and pointed to her mouth.

Considering the business she’s in, it’s surprising she mixed up the two, but likely English is not her first language. 

“Your affiant (officer) clarified with the defendant that a ‘hand job’ was requested. The defendant told your affiant it would be $100 and said the ‘hand job’ would be good,” court docs state.

That was enough business between the two of them to alert a swarm of detectives who took her into custody.

There won’t be any need to visit the Cozy Spa at 6423 Bluffton Rd. For some reason, the Allen County Building Department shut that one down in October, but it was getting somewhat notorious.

Last summer, The Probable Cause talked with a neighboring business across the road from the massage parlor. As the conversation went on, the young woman working there came out of the massage parlor and stood outside near the road in her slinky underwear, as if to beckon clients. 

A closer look inside the shop and there was a board listing prices for massages starting at 30 minutes, but there was no mention of "happy endings,” the usual joke about these places. The same woman was seated in the shadows at a diagonal from the entrance and then darted off.

These places are all over Fort Wayne.

Tang and Li were released on their own recognizance and have their initial hearings in front of Magistrate John Bohdan April 24. That’s enough time to get out of the country or at least to California.