Federal and local law enforcement arrested the manager of a South Los Angeles motel and eight others Wednesday during a crackdown on sex trafficking along the notorious Figueroa Corridor south of downtown Los Angeles.
The arrests were part of what’s being called Operation Broken Blade, an ongoing takedown of alleged trafficking on the 3.5-mile stretch of Figueroa Street from Gage Avenue south to Imperial Highway, which is known as a haven for commercial sex workers and customers.
Officials say gang members and associates largely control sex trafficking and prostitution along the corridor, acting as pimps by managing and monitoring victims as young as 14 years old, pooling resources to rent motel rooms, and disciplining each other’s victims.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said women and girls are often recruited via social media or in person, and pimps focus on vulnerable minors, particularly those with financial or emotional struggles or who had run away from home or the foster care system.
Pimps are also known to have plied victims with drugs, including oxycodone and methamphetamine, while recruiting females via false promises of a luxurious lifestyle, intimidation, and actual or threatened violence, according to court papers.
In September 2024, federal, county and city officials in Los Angeles announced the Figueroa Human Trafficking Initiative, a partnership aimed at disrupting human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of minors in the corridor.
“We promised results and today we’re here to show them,” McDonnell told reporters at a Wednesday morning news conference in downtown Los Angeles.
According to a 65-count updated indictment filed in Los Angeles federal court and unsealed Wednesday, 51 victims have been identified so far.
“Sex trafficking of young women and children ranks among the worst criminal offenses our office prosecutes — truly the lowest of the low,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement.
Among seven new defendants, federal prosecutors said, is Mukeshkumar Rambhai Ahir, 45, of South Los Angeles, manager of the Stadium Inn motel. Ahir is charged with financially benefiting from sex trafficking, allegedly having deposited $64,581 in proceeds he knew derived from a street gang’s sex trafficking of children and adults along the street known as “Fig,” Essayli said.
According to the indictment, which names 18 defendants, some members of the gang produced rap music and videos, which often glorified the gang, sex trafficking, drug sales and firearms possession.
Members also allegedly posted videos and photographs of their assaults on others to social media, in order to intimidate their victims and ensure compliance, Essayli said.
Convictions for sex trafficking offenses carry harsher sentences under federal law than state law, federal prosecutors said. If convicted, some defendants in the case would potentially face sentences of 15 years to life imprisonment, according to Essayli.