Cleveland, Ohio As part of a broader statewide crackdown on companies investigators claim are connected to sex trafficking and forced labor, authorities searched a foot parlor in North Royalton on Thursday.
Meiao Foot Spa on Wallings Road was searched by North Royalton police and the Northeast Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force, according to officials. Federal agents arrested and detained two individuals.
Earlier this month, police raided companies in Strongsville, Lorain, and North Olmsted as part of a series of raids conducted in Cuyahoga County.
Spas in Maumee, Youngstown, Lakewood, Broadview Heights, Warren, Fairfield, and Carroll in Butler and Fairfield counties have been searched by law authorities since 2024.
Following the raids in Cuyahoga and Lorain counties earlier this month, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost declared that there was a statewide effort to uncover trafficking enterprises that were operating covertly. These locations are not for leisure or health. They have to do with exploitation.
For decades, authorities tended to target the spas for prostitution, arresting both patrons and employees with low-level felonies or misdemeanors. When Lorain County prosecutors started charging operators with state racketeering in the 1990s, that strategy changed. Tens of thousands of dollars were seized, and several owners were imprisoned for years.
Other counties did the same. Nevertheless, the companies have continued to operate, frequently hidden in retail centers close to major roads, providing investigators with little break in their attempts to close them.
Authorities claim that the most recent round of raids demonstrates a renewed emphasis on taking down the trafficking networks that operate behind the storefronts rather than merely the people who work there.
