After pleading guilty in a New York City court in May to helping run an international sex trafficking ring which saw women being brought from the central Mexican town of Tenancingo to Queens in order to work as prostitutes, Angel Cortez Granados was sentenced by federal judge Sandra Towner to 15 years in prison with an additional five years of probation on Friday. Cortez Granados admitted during his trial to having participated in the recruitment and smuggling process for several women as part of the Granados family sex-trafficking ring between August and April of 2011 before being detained in September of that year by US authorities. Authorities believe that there are at least 20 members of the family ring.
"I threatened her, telling her that she was alone in this country, that nobody would help her, so that she would work as a prostitute," Cortez Granados said in May of one of the victims, with whom he had become romantically involved in Mexico. He also admitted that he told her that he would call the immigration authorities on her if she didn't follow his orders. "Since she didn't have any papers, (I was) scaring her with the possibility of going to jail," he said.
Members of the Granados trafficking family publicized their services by handing out cards known as "chica cards" on the streets of neighborhoods in Queens and the Bronx. Those cards advertised the sexual services of young women who would come to where their clients lived, charging $30 to $35 for 15 minutes. According to the public prosecutor's office, the ring was aimed primarily at attracting johns in Hispanic communities, and that the first victim of the ring was identified in 1998. Assistant US Attorney Pamela Chen said that at least 15 women have been identified as trafficking victims, though more probably exist. Six other members of the family -- Eleuterio Granados Hernández, Paulino Ramírez Granados, Raúl Granados Rendón, Magdalena Hernández Maximiliano, Marina Granados Rendón and Jacinta Rojas - have already been charged by New York authorities.
The town from which Cortez Granados and his family hail, Tenancingo, is notorious as a cradle of sex trafficking. With a population of only 10,000 people, pimps who send women to Mexico City, New York and other US cities - of the 32 sex traffickers arrested by New York Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year, 26 were from Tenancingo. They enjoy the status of royalty, living in mansions and flashing their wealth conspicuously. Women are wooed at bus stops and during strolls in the park, then forced to prostitute for their "boyfriends". Lori Cohen of Sanctuary for Families told the NY Daily News in June, "It's multi-generational. You have families where the grandfather, father and son are all engaged in trafficking. They pass down the tricks of the trade."
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