Members of an international sex trafficking ring say their prostitutes operated out of an upscale apartment complex in Skokie. The ring was busted last May after hundreds of women had been trafficked from Thailand to cities all over the U. On its website, Optima Old Orchard Woods calls itself a premier location for luxury apartments just north of Chicago.
Maybe that's one reason sex traffickers bringing women from Thailand set up shop there. The building's name surfaced in a recent guilty plea from one of 21 defendants charged last May in Minneapolis with running a nationwide sex trafficking ring. One of the defendants, a so-called house boss, admitted using "at least eight different apartment units in the Optima Old Orchard Woods in Skokie and Catherine Court Apartments in Chicago.
Prostitutes, she said, were typically trying to pay off thousands of dollars owed to the traffickers who helped bring them there. Another house boss admitted she kept a list of five-thousand customers in the Chicago area.
That number doesn't surprise opponents of sex trafficking. S banks back to the far east. Just like Optima, there's no indication that management at Catherine Court Apartments was aware of what was happening. Beach Hazard Statement.
