A member of The Washington Examiner’s Top 10 Most Wanted fugitives was taken into custody after her story was featured on the television program “America’s Most Wanted.”
Authorities said 60-year-old Un Sun Lee Brown, whose last known address was in Silver Spring, surrendered to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Washington on Wednesday after being on the run since 2006. Authorities said Brown operated a downtown D.C. brothel and recruited women from Korea under false pretenses, then threatened them with violence if they made efforts to escape.
“Sex traffickers prey on the vulnerabilities of their victims to force them into lives of servitude and rob them of their human dignity,” said ICE Special Agent James T. Hayes Jr. “We will continue to work tirelessly with our partners to bring down these ruthless operations and bring to justice those who profit from them.”
In 2006, Brown was the owner of the 14k Spa, located at 1413 K St. NW, one of five locations raided by federal agents in a sex trafficking sting. Thirty-one people, including Brown, were rounded up as part of a sex-slave ring that authorities said ran from Korea to the East Coast.
According to court documents, Brown used recruits to would find Korean women interested in traveling to the United States to earn money for their families. The women were provided false immigration documents or were turned over to handlers in Canada or Mexico, who smuggled them into the country, the documents said.
The women often were transported to New York, where they were told the truth: They would have to work as prostitutes to offset their costs for being smuggled into the country, authorities said.
The brothel owners often asked for specific physical attributes, and some in Washington complained that some of the women were “too tall” or “not satisfactory,” according to recorded conversations. Sometimes the women were shipped back and forth to brothels in other cities to fill specific orders filed by other brothel owners and managers, authorities said.
Owners sent some of the money to South Korea to pay for the smuggling fees, authorities said.
Business owners often took away the women’s identification and travel documents and led them to believe that they would be turned over to U.S. authorities or that their families would be harmed if they fled before paying off their outstanding smuggling fee.
If convicted, Brown faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
