MIAMI – Luis Escalante and Vicenta Polanco went back to their home country of Cuba with a promise for two women, police say: They would help smuggle them off the island and get them jobs working as exotic dancers in South Florida.
But, instead, the duo from Miami forced the women into prostitution, with both expected to sell their bodies up to seven days a week to four to five men a day, according to police.
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Authorities said Escalante, 24, and Polanco, 30, who both reside in the same Flagami apartment, kept the women’s legal documents, including their Cuban passports, to use as “collateral” against them.
Miami police said they arrested the pair at their residence, located on Northwest 43rd Avenue, early Tuesday morning. An arrest report doesn’t make clear if or how they are related.
According to the report, one of the victims told detectives that Escalante and Polanco traveled to Cuba and offered to pay for a “coyote” to smuggle her to the United States and offered her work dancing at an adult entertainment establishment.
Polanco asked for her “original immigration documents and Cuban passport for safekeeping and promised to assist her with legal representation for her immigration process,” police wrote.
She then told the victim that she wouldn’t be stripping, as promised. Instead, she’d be working as a prostitute, police said.
Polanco took racy photographs of the victim for listings on online prostitution websites, the report states.
Police said the second victim told a similar story, saying that she was told a week after arriving in the United States that she’d be selling her body, “which she did not want to do,” rather than working as a dancer.
Both reported similar work expectations and said Polanco would collect all the money they earned.
Police arrested Escalante and Polanco after they said the victims went to their home to demand their documents back.
Escalante, police said, told them they would need to pay off their debt of $10,000 to $12,000 first, leading the victims to call authorities.
The report states after executing a search warrant, police impounded $9,000 in cash, eight cellphones, three laptops and two iPads, along with a white envelope containing money with one of the victims’ names written on the outside.
Police said Polanco “denied having the victims’ passport(s) and blamed the victims for possibly losing (them)” and refused to answer questions about the prostitution allegations.
Escalante, according to police, “denied the allegations” but made an admission to detectives, which was redacted from the report.
According to jail records, both were being held without bond in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on multiple human trafficking and prostitution charges.