News 96.5 learned a Winter Park massage parlor has been shut down because investigators said it was really nothing more than a brothel.
The owner of the massage parlor has ties to two others like it. She was arrested at one of them on Grove Avenue, which sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
"It overlooks a lake. There's residences on the front and sides of the business," said Lt. Michael Gibson of the MBI.
On Thursday, MBI agents arrested and charged five women they said were running the place.
The alleged owner said she had nothing to do with the business, but investigators said otherwise and shut the location down. They said it's the third prostitution ring the women have been caught working in.
The group has been associated with at least three different massage parlors across Orange County.
"As we started recognizing this was more a criminal enterprise, racketeering charges came into focus," said Gibson.
News 96.5 was there in July when Elite Spa on South Semoran Boulevard was raided. Investigators shut the place down, but that's when the owner of that business, Tasha Poemoceah, opened up shop in Winter Park.
"They say you were kind of the ringleader in these businesses. What do you say to that?" Ray asked Poemoceah as she was being arrested.
"I'm not," she replied.
Unlike prostitution charges, racketeering carries a much higher sentence with a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison.
"It's going to send a strong message to at least this organization that we're policing these criminal enterprises heavily," Gibson.
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