Three men are
facing sex trafficking charges after authorities say they lured young
gay Hungarian men to South Florida and forced them into prostitution.
NBC 6's Dan Krauth reports.
Monday, Oct 6, 2014 • Updated at 8:38 AM EDT
Three
men are facing sex trafficking charges after authorities say they lured
young gay Hungarian men to South Florida and forced them into
prostitution.
Gabor
Acs, 31, Viktor Berki, 28, and Andras Janos Vass, 24, are facing
charges including human trafficking, racketeering and deriving support
from prostitution, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office said Friday.
The
investigation dates back to October 2013, when Homeland Security
received a tip that three men in Miami Beach were possible victims of
human trafficking.
Prosecutors
said the men, ages 20-22, were lured to the United States with the
promise of quick, easy and legal cash, and they were brought to New York
before arriving in Miami.
Hungarian Gay Sex Trafficking Ring Busted: SAO
![[MI] Hungarian Gay Sex Trafficking Ring Busted: SAO](http://media.nbcmiami.com/images/620*349/WTVJ_000000014945716_1200x675_337590851587.jpg)
Once
in Miami, the men engaged in prostitution or performed sex acts in
front of a webcam for 18-20 hours a day, prosecutors said. All the
payments went to Acs, Berki and Vass.
The
victims told investigators that the suspects "used various techniques
to keep them enslaved, including isolating them from others, withholding
their travel and identification documents, and using financial
manipulation to keep them in constant debt," the State Attorney's Office
said in a statement.
The
suspects rarely let their victims leave their shared apartment and they
were told it was because they could not speak English and they were not
familiar with the area, authorities said.
Acs,
Berki and Vass threatened and psychologically intimidated the men and
took their identification documents and locked them in a safe,
authorities said. The victims also experienced levels of violence from
the suspects.
Neighbors
said they saw several luxury cars stop at the suburban home. At one
point, they allegedly had a sign on the front door advertising $5 car
washes, which is illegal in a residential neighborhood. Police said the
car wash was a front for having so many cars pull into the house.
"The
overall attractiveness of our South Florida area is equally attractive
to sex traffickers," State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a
statement. "These individuals may have come from a different country to
exploit the vulnerable but they used the same basic trafficker tools of
fear and intimidation to make their profits."
Two
of the suspects, Berki and Vass, were arrested in New York. Acs was
arrested in Miami and was being held at Krome Detention Center Friday,
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