Article Summary
- A federal judge Thursday in Benton sentenced two people to two years in prison each for their roles in running five illicit massage businesses that offered commercial sex services in southern Illinois and Indiana; three of the massage parlors have reopened under new ownership after being shut down.
- State and federal agents executed search warrants on the businesses in June 2024 as part of a months-long human trafficking investigation. During the raid, they discovered hidden condoms and identification documents belonging to female workers, which the FBI considers a human trafficking indicator. Investigators also interviewed several men who told them they’d paid for sex acts at the massage parlors.
- The assistant U.S. attorney who handled the case compared the networks operating illicit massage parlors to drug-trafficking operations, with people working at different levels of the supply chain.
This summary was written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
BENTON — On June 20, 2024, state and federal agents descended on five massage parlors in southern Illinois and Indiana in a coordinated raid targeting what prosecutors would later describe as a rural prostitution ring.
More than two years later, Jianhong Hu Allbright, 58, of Corydon, Indiana, and Yalong Cao, 27, of Schaumburg, were each sentenced this month to two years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit an offense against the United States and money laundering. As part of Allbright’s plea deal, prosecutors dropped a charge of transporting an individual to engage in prostitution.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Karelia Rajagopal said in federal court in Benton on Thursday that Allbright had served as a madam, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the illicit massage businesses.
She’d started off as a victim herself, taking money for sexual acts as a masseuse, Rajagopal said. Allbright then worked her way up in the business, eventually buying three massage parlors from Cao. He had operated massage parlors in southern Illinois towns of Harrisburg, Centralia, Mount Vernon and Vandalia, and in Corydon, Indiana, where Allbright had worked.
Although none of the women prosecutors identified as victims during the raids cooperated with investigators, Rajagopal said evidence showed Cao operated and profited from houses of prostitution. She likened the network to a drug-trafficking operation, with street dealers like Allbright at the bottom and suppliers like Cao at the top.
Cao’s lawyer, Andrew Russek, acknowledged Cao knew the businesses engaged in prostitution and profited from it, but argued that prosecutors overstated his role.
Russek said Cao rarely visited the businesses and primarily handled advertising. Of the $850 a month he received for purchasing ads, he kept just $300 in profit, Russek said. And while experts say women working in illicit massage businesses are often forced to engage in commercial sex to pay off immigration-related debts, Russek said that none of the masseuses working at the businesses during Cao’s ownership owed him money.
“To suggest he was a mastermind doesn’t meet the preponderance of the evidence,” Russek said.
Seeking a five-year prison sentence — two and a half times what federal sentencing guidelines recommended — Rajagopal described Cao as the “puppet master” of the massage-front brothels, even after he sold the businesses to Allbright. She said Cao recruited female massage workers through WeChat by promoting their potential earnings and managed an elaborate banking system to conceal earnings. He directed Allbright to solicit johns who would be willing to pick up new girls from the airport. According to court records, he also advertised the businesses on websites associated with escorts and commercial sex, including skipthegames.com and onebackpage.com.
“His actions all come from a greed to make more money,” she said.
When the indictments were announced in July 2025, U.S. Attorney Steven Weinhoeft said that while “Pretty Woman” may have romanticized prostitution, illicit massage parlors are “criminal enterprises that create and exploit financial dependency to trap immigrants and others, coercing them into degrading subjugation.” In a statement to Southern Illinois Source this week, Weinhoeft called the arrests a testament to the assistant U.S. attorneys working in the Southern District of Illinois who “have built one of the strongest programs in the country” for dismantling human trafficking organizations.
“They train law enforcement, direct investigations, and bring cases when the evidence is there,” he said. “In this investigation, that meant using every available tool — including money laundering charges that are not typical for an illicit massage business.”
But disrupting these networks has proven difficult for federal authorities. After the raid, the massage parlor businesses changed hands again. Three of the five reopened — the one in Mount Vernon with a different name but the same address. Representatives who answered the phone at those three massage parlors declined comment, saying they didn’t know anything about the businesses.
They are among several dozen across the lower third of the state that are advertised on the illicit websites mentioned in the federal indictment, and featured on rubmaps.com, where users can pay $50 a month to leave and read others’ reviews on the commercial sex offerings at various massage parlors. A review is not proof of prostitution.
In several southern Illinois towns, public officials and police acknowledged suspecting prostitution activities go on in certain massage parlors. A few even snickered when Southern Illinois Source reporters inquired.
But the dangers posed by this illicit industry became starkly apparent on Oct. 19, days after Allbright’s sentencing, when a man set fire to a massage parlor in Cahokia Heights because he was dissatisfied with a sexual service he had purchased. A woman died.
“I think it is not something that we should just snicker at. We’re not the puritan police, and adults who consent to activity are going to do what they do, and that is between them,” said Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly. “But this is an industry that exploits human beings, and human beings are being treated as a commodity, and it’s not voluntary.”
“It’s not something to be ignored,” Kelly added. “We have to continue to fight it.”
A months-long investigation
In November 2023, the Illinois State Police Trafficking Enforcement Bureau and the Illinois Department of Revenue began investigating massage parlors in southern Illinois and Indiana after discovering ads placed by Cao featuring scantily clad women in provocative poses to promote the businesses’ sexual offerings.
Agents then spent hours staking out the businesses and questioning male patrons, court records show. On Jan. 3, 2024, they stopped a man who’d spent about 70 minutes inside Rose Spa in Harrisburg. He said he’d paid $70 for a one-hour massage — plus left a $40 cash tip after receiving hand stimulation. Men at other locations reported paying for oral sex and “happy endings.”
Days before the raid, a man leaving Oasis Massage Spa in Vandalia told investigators he’d received sexual services from a masseuse who worked seven days a week and was always at the business. She’d told him her only earnings came from cash tips.
On June 20, 2024, state and federal investigators executed search warrants at all five businesses, along with a residence and living quarters connected to the Indiana location. There, investigators overheard Allbright instructing other women not to reveal where condoms were kept, according to court records. Officers found them hidden in containers disguised as ordinary retail products.
Investigators also seized $75,000 in cash across the businesses and recovered female workers’ identification documents. According to the FBI, the withholding of identification documents is a red flag for human trafficking. They encountered 11 women whom prosecutors later identified in court as victims.
Allbright was arrested in January 2025 while attempting to board a flight to South Korea at San Francisco International Airport. A grand jury indicted her the following month, then added Cao in a superseding indictment four months later.
Defendants apologize, ask for leniency
During her sentencing hearing, Allbright, a Chinese national living in the U.S. with a green card, read a letter she wrote on her own behalf in her native language of Mandarin. A court interpreter translated her statements into English.
“I will not engage in any business related to massage,” said Allbright, who is married to a U.S. citizen from Indiana whom she met online. “I will not engage in any business that would hurt the United States.”
Allbright also spoke of recent health troubles, saying, “I want to go home to see my doctor. My health condition is not well.”
By the time of her sentencing, Allbright had already served 21 months behind bars, so her sentence effectively amounted to time served. Judge J. Phil Gilbert told Allbright that she will likely be deported upon her release. Russek sought time served for Cao as well, which the court denied.
During his sentencing hearing on Thursday, Cao’s wife, Vicky Lai, pleaded with Gilbert for leniency for her husband, saying that Cao was the primary breadwinner while she stays home with their 4-year-old daughter.
“I’m worried how I’m going to provide for our family,” she said, reading a statement to the court.
She brought family pictures to show the judge and described struggling to find the words when their daughter asks, “Why hasn’t daddy come home yet?”
Cao also read a lengthy letter to the court in his native Mandarin. He said he had been working as a sushi chef and had recently earned his commercial driver’s license, hoping to work as a trucker, when he was approached about buying into the massage businesses. Under his ownership, he said he paid taxes and only hired workers legally in the United States.
Still, he acknowledged his wrongdoing, and told the judge, “I believe in the person I can become.” At times, he wept openly and struggled to speak.
When he finished, Gilbert and Cao engaged in a brief back-and-forth, translated between Mandarin and English:
“Did you know these massage parlors were engaged in prostitution?” Gilbert asked.
“I knew,” he said. “Yes.”
“Is prostitution legal in China?” Gilbert continued.
“No,” Cao said.
“So why in the world would you be participating in illicit massage parlors in a country you were not a citizen of, knowing you were doing something illegal?”
Cao called it a “stupid mistake,” telling Gilbert he was only 22 years old at the time and wanted to earn money fast.
“Well, Mr. Cao. You did make a stupid mistake. You know who the biggest victims in this case are? Your wife and child,” Gilbert said, noting Cao will also likely be deported upon his release from custody.
Just before sentencing Cao, Gilbert added, “There are no winners here.”
This story was produced by the Daily Egyptian and Southern Illinois Source, the Illinois Press Foundation’s nonprofit news collaborative serving the bottom third of the state.
