Hundreds of Long Island massage spas sell sex. Neighbors complain. Police raid them. Business is booming.

The door to Well Foot Spa stayed locked on a recent afternoon, its windows covered, its business visible only in brief flashes: a man peering through the slats of the shade, a woman unlocking the door, another man slipping out, then another arriving in a pickup truck.

In two hours, four men visited and left the Huntington strip mall spa. No female customers were seen.

Six days earlier, Suffolk police and the Huntington fire marshal raided the massage spa after neighbors complained about a steady stream of male customers and raised suspicion of illicit activity. Two workers were arrested on prostitution-related charges.

"I was the one who called police," said Judi Morrison, a retired special education aide who lives nearby and gets her hair and nails done at a salon in the strip mall. "They raided it, and it was open the next day."

Morrison had considered getting a massage there until friends told her the spa catered to male customers. That was when "I found out what a massage parlor really meant," she said.

"The thought of it in my neighborhood — my God — what’s next?" Morrison believes it’s only going to get worse and "opens up a window to a world that I don’t want to be part of," she said.

Tucked beside kids’ dance studios, salons, medical practices and other family-friendly businesses, sex is for sale at hundreds of massage parlors and foot spas across Long Island. Demand is fueling a booming illegal industry, even as police are cracking down and arrests are skyrocketing. Many shuttered spas are reopening within hours in an enforcement game of whack-a-mole.

Long Island has become one of New York’s most active fronts in a roughly $500 million-a-year industry in the state, a Newsday investigation found. Police and town officials raided at least 231 spas in Nassau and Suffolk counties over the last five years. At least 85 have been raided more than once.

Newsday analyzed police and court records of more than 350 women who were arrested and interviewed more than 70 attorneys, sex trafficking experts, local officials, business owners, spa workers and customers. Online sex classifieds watched by law enforcement to identify illicit spas across Long Island also were reviewed. Reporters visited Nassau and Suffolk courthouses each week to track how prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys handled spa worker cases.

Hundreds of women, many Chinese immigrants living in Flushing, Queens, are caught in a revolving door of arrests and court appearances, then often return to the same work, while their customers rarely get charged and their employers escape scrutiny from law enforcement.

The cycle exposes a complicated reality of illicit sex on the Island, which is angering neighbors and local business owners whose complaints have done little to stop the heedless growth of the commercial sex trade.

"They’re everywhere," said Christine Guida, deputy bureau chief of the Nassau County District Attorney's special victims unit. "They’re in Nassau County. They’re all over New York City. They’re in Suffolk. They’re in every town," said the senior assistant district attorney.

Suburbs a 'sweet spot'

For every Starbucks in New York, there are nearly two illicit massage spas, or fronts for prostitution, according to The Network, an anti-trafficking nonprofit based in Virginia.

Spas get raided in every corner of Long Island. One sits directly across the street from a Merrick elementary school. Another in Massapequa shares a wall with a girls’ dance studio. Some are in unmarked storefronts or professional buildings. A third was right next to a family doctor’s office in Port Jefferson Station.

Though many are located in storefronts in strip malls, some are in unexpected places. Nassau police raided a large doctor's office complex at 100 Veterans Blvd. in February in Massapequa. A 37-year-old woman was arrested just after 3 p.m. in an office suite and charged with prostitution and unauthorized practice of a profession, in this case, unlicensed massage.

Arrests for prostitution and unlicensed massage at spas across Long Island have soared more than 1,200% in the last five years, Newsday's analysis of court records shows. The most serious criminal charge spa workers face is not for selling sex, but actually for offering a massage without a license, which is a felony. Prostitution is a misdemeanor. 

Last year, Long Island made up nearly 70% of all prostitution and unlicensed massage arrests in the state.

Long Island’s high number of arrests stands out, experts say, because New York State has effectively decriminalized prostitution in recent years.

Long Island police said they have made more than 400 arrests for unauthorized practice of a profession in the last five years. By comparison, the New York Police Department made 29 arrests on the same charge across all five New York City boroughs over the last five years, state data shows. Arrests in the city's northern suburbs are a bit higher, with Westchester County police making 59 arrests over the same time period.

The spa raids happen so frequently on the Island that when Christopher Formiglia heard police raided a foot spa for prostitution in May 2025 just a few doors down from his mixed martial arts school in a Selden strip mall, he said he thought, "Not another one."

Police arrested a A 27-year-old native of Venezuela at a house behind a closed business in Huntington Station. She said she felt she had no choice but to enter the illicit sex trade. She asked that her name not be used because she feared U.S. immigration officials could deport her.

As she awaited a court hearing on prostitution and unlicensed massage charges in March, she said in Spanish that she had left a housekeeping job in Atlanta after a friend said that she could make more money on Long Island.

She said she’d see up to 10 men a day during her 10-hour sex work shift, giving half of what she made — $100 for a half-hour and $150 for an hour — to her boss.

Although the sex trade is often associated with violence, she said that was not a concern for her. She worried more about her upcoming court hearing because she is living in the country without legal permission. As she clutched a pink leather bag that matched her pink sweatsuit, she said quietly, "I’m leaving everything to God."

Adam Mingli Chen, a criminal defense attorney in Flushing and Manhattan, who has represented more than 500 spa workers, said his clients have told him their Long Island customers pay better, and they’re clean.

Affluent, suburban communities are "where the market is," said Beisi Huang, a counselor and advocate for Chinese trafficking survivors at The Network. Customers, she said, "pay a little bit better," and there’s less crime than in urban areas.

"Quite honestly," she said, "it’s a sweet spot."

The pipeline

Immigration records show a surge of migration from China into the United States beginning in 2023, when it increased tenfold over the year before. Many of those immigrants were living in the country without legal permission, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

When immigrants arrive in New York from China, their first stop often is Flushing, Queens, where roughly 70% of the population is Asian. Flushing is more populous than Manhattan’s Chinatown, and there are scores of Asian-oriented businesses and professionals.

"It makes sense," Chen said. "Chinese is the primary language [in Flushing]. It’s easy to integrate."

Three-quarters of the women arrested on Long Island in the last five years in cases analyzed by Newsday live in Queens, many within a 1.5-mile radius of one another in Flushing. 

From that base, which experts say is an "epicenter" of the sex trade, immigrants connect with one another through WeChat, a Chinese app that enables messaging, social media and mobile payments. Many women trade information about jobs on the app.

"It’s like a forum for coordinating the illicit massage industry," said Ian Hassell, founder of The Network. "Somebody in Ohio says, ‘Hey, I’m gonna need two girls next week, and somebody in another state says, ‘OK, no problem. I can send them to you.’ "

Often, the women don’t know where they are.

In the hallway outside of Nassau’s human trafficking court, one woman said she didn’t know the name of the spa where she was arrested.

"I only know it was off Exit 41," she told a Newsday reporter in Mandarin. The woman asked not to be named because she feared U.S. immigration officials would revoke her permanent resident status.

Spa owners transport some women in vans or by carpool. Other workers live at the spas, eating and sleeping there, officials said.

On one Chinese-language site called 168worker.com, a job listing for a spa masseuse read, "Preference given to those with their own car or who can live on-site."

No customers arrested

At least 21 women have been arrested two or more times, at least two have been arrested three times, and one arrested four times. These are undercounts, officials say, as most cases are quickly sealed after charges are dismissed.

Spa workers who have been arrested ranged in age from 23 to 71. Their median age was 45, and almost every arrest across both counties was a woman of Chinese descent.

As for massage spa customers engaging in sex acts, they are committing a crime called "patronizing a person for prostitution." The arrest outcome has been very different in the same time period for them: None have been arrested at the illegal spas.

Spas advertise on a variety of online websites featuring provocative seminude photos of young women for people interested in buying sex.

One day in April, there were more than 400 ads on Bedpage advertising women at spas from Freeport to Riverhead. Many highlighted grand openings and "new girls." 

When a buyer settles on a service and location, an appointment can be made by phone. Afterward, customers can rate their experience on a website called Utopia Guide. They describe the women’s bodies and sexual acts in explicit language, recommending spas to fellow users and sharing details about pricing.

On Jan. 23, one male customer wrote: "I've seen many places that have been open for 20+ years and never had a problem. H&Q is one for example."

Authorities monitor the site. Weeks after the customer's posting, Nassau police raided the spa, located on Hicksville Road in Bethpage. Police arrested a 49-year-old woman and turned her over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Records show that authorities have raided that location at least three times.

Some defense attorneys argue that it’s ridiculous to arrest men because there are more serious crimes to pursue.

But others shared a different perspective.

"Men just don’t want to deal with it because of the brotherhood," said Chitra Raghavan, a psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who testifies as an expert in trafficking cases.

"I think lots of people don’t understand the incredible extent of suffering, degradation and breakdown," she said.

"It’s emotional labor that’s really degrading. And people don’t think about it that way because, well, they don’t want to go there," Raghavan said.

Often, the women don’t see themselves as victims, experts say. That holds true even when they apply for what they think is a legitimate massage job, only to be told once they arrive that they have to provide sexual services, in what Guida calls a "bait and switch."

Sitting quietly in a Nassau court hallway on a recent afternoon, one spa worker told Newsday in Mandarin that she was tricked into doing this work. She said she didn't want her name used because she feared retaliation from the spa owner.

"I saw a job ad online, I thought it was regular beauty/bodywork. But when I got there ... they forced us to do things we didn’t expect," she said. "Everyone there was tricked. ... I work 12 hours a day. ... No pay, only tips, and we have to split the tips. There are cameras everywhere. The boss watches everything on her phone."

"I want to call the police but I don’t speak English, and I’m afraid she’ll retaliate. ... Even when we turn on the heat in the store, she scolds us. ... We have to eat in the bathroom."

Money to be made

Spa owners monitor the women with interior surveillance cameras. That way, "they make sure that the girls don’t cheat" them out of their share of the money, said Melville-based criminal defense attorney Gerald Dandeneau.  

Even with splitting what they earn with their bosses, they can earn substantial incomes, up to $120,000 a year, he said. But Dandeneau added, "I would say the very, very vast, vast majority dislike the work tremendously."

Ownership of spas is opaque. State incorporation records show many of them listed merely as "The Corporation" at the spa address. Some of those business listings are linked to legitimate companies, like nail salons, coffee shops, a tile company or a Manhattan karaoke bar.

It’s not unusual for the workers to have no clue who they are working for, Chen said. "Some of these ladies don't know who the real boss is behind the massage parlors." That can be scary, he said.

In some cases, spa employees work their way up to managing or owning a spa or spas themselves. Newsday found three cases of women arrested for prostitution several years ago, who more recently got arrested for promoting prostitution, profiting from prostitution by managing or owning a business. To date, one of the cases has been dismissed, and two are pending.

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said in an interview the department is focused on "quality of life" crimes, including prostitution.

"We know that every time there’s a massage parlor that opens up, that pops up in the middle of the night, it’s probably not there for that reason, for the massage part," he said.

He added, "Complaints come from the community all the time, and then we go in there and we effect the arrests."

Prosecuting spa owners is difficult because the women rarely cooperate. While they are not often threatened with violence, they feel ashamed, Guida said.

Suffolk Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina declined an interview, but said in a statement the department takes community complaints about illicit massage businesses seriously and works to investigate the people profiting from illicit massage businesses.

"While enforcement actions may involve individuals working at these locations, our investigations also focus on identifying and holding accountable those responsible for organizing and profiting from these operations, based on the evidence available."

Both the Suffolk and Nassau county executives declined to be interviewed for this story.

Enforcement paradox

In Greenlawn, the Xiu Lan Foot Spa, located in a small strip mall between a professional office and a bar, shut down after being raided twice. Not long afterward, business owners directed a Newsday reporter to a new establishment that had popped up just across the street: Valley Sole Spa.

Just a few doors down from a Carvel store, the spa had decals blocking its windows. The women working there did not allow walk-in appointments, only those made by phone — an attempt to evade law enforcement, according to Huntington Public Safety Director Christopher Lau.

It didn’t work. In March, police raided Valley Sole and arrested a 47-year-old woman on prostitution and unlicensed massage charges. 

The next morning, the spa was open again. A woman working there said through a translation app that police had merely been checking on them and, "everything was fine."

In May, police again raided Valley Sole and arrested the same 47-year-old woman they had arrested in March, this time for unlicensed massage.

Glen Cove Police Lt. Det. John Nagle said his department has raided at least 10 spas in the last year after community members pulled aside officers to complain.

"What happens is, we hit a spa one week. We go back the following week and it’s all different workers there. The people in charge of these places just move ’em out, move ’em someplace else and someone else moves in," he said.

In one case, a 44-year-old woman arrested for prostitution on Jan. 9, 2025, at a foot spa in Amityville was arrested again less than a mile away at an unmarked storefront just seven days later. In April 2026, she was arrested for a third time inside the same building. As in the Valley Sole case, women sometimes are arrested more than once at the same spa. In less than two weeks in July 2025, a 45-year-old woman was arrested twice at the Spring Day Spa in Hicksville. In a separate case, a 53-year-old woman was arrested twice in one week at the Li Foot Spa in Smithtown.

"They arrest them, release them and they go right back," said Pastor Gary Chin, who has counseled spa workers arrested in Queens. "It’s easy money."

Ryder acknowledged the problem. "They go, they get out, the next day out, no bail, and then they’re gone. So there’s no real penalty to it," he said, adding, "But just because there’s no penalty doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still do our job."

Police in both counties send undercover detectives into spas to investigate prostitution and unlicensed massages. Because massage therapists are required to be licensed by New York State, providing a massage for a fee without a license is considered a crime. To make a prostitution arrest, there must be an agreement made on a payment for sex, Guida said.

Police and court records show there is often little ambiguity in making that agreement.

In September 2025 at Jericho Foot Spa in Huntington, while an undercover officer was getting a massage, court records show the woman massaging him "pointed to her mouth and stated ... ‘this is one-hundred dollars,’ and pointed to her groin and stated ... ‘this is one hundred forty dollars.’ "

Police frequently conduct raids with town code enforcement officers, who check the premises for safety violations, such as blocked fire exits or flammable liquids stored next to space heaters. Sometimes, the violations are serious enough to close down the business.

After police raided Tao's Foot Spa in Nesconset and made arrests for unlicensed massage, the Smithtown Fire Marshal’s Office cited it for repeated safety violations. They were enough to close down the spa in March 2025. As of early March this year, the spa was open for business.

"These illegal establishments are actually harming the legitimate, licensed [massage] therapists in town," Glen Clove's Nagle said.

Belle Hugo owns Vertex Physical Therapy Services, which provides physical therapy and massage at offices in Central Islip, Howard Beach and Hempstead. She said she has had uncomfortable encounters with men walking into her clinic because she is Filipina and her physical therapists are, as well.

"Coming into my place, they see Asian and say, ‘Do you do massage for an hour? I just want a girl. Can you take cash?’ " she said.

It happened so frequently that it spurred her to join the Suffolk County Asian American Advisory Board. "It’s a platform for us to show that we are not like that," she said.

Vito Uneberg, Hugo’s husband and co-owner of the business, said all their therapists are medically trained.

Of the illicit massage spas, he said, "I worry that is a bad look on the entire industry and for the Asians who are in the industry legitimately."

Community concern

One business owner, who asked that his name not be used because he said he has been threatened by spa owners, said he has had to deal with ugly aspects of the foot spas in his strip mall.

"There are a multitude of businesses where children are frequently present with their families, such as barbershops, restaurants, chiropractic businesses, martial arts schools and fast food places," he said. "For me to have to go out in the morning to pick up condoms so the kids don’t see them ... is very disconcerting."

He said female spa workers fleeing customers have sought shelter in his office and he has called police in those instances.

He said he has been threatened because he complained to police.

"People meeting me at my car after work. It was OK because I defused it very quickly," he said.

Other business owners contacted by Newsday also declined to give their names. Some said they didn’t want the taint of scandal to be associated with their businesses.

"It has a terrible impact on neighboring businesses because it gives everybody a bad reputation," said Gail Lynch-Bailey, president of the Middle Island Civic Association, which has complained to police about illegal massage spas.

It has a terrible impact on neighboring businesses because it gives everybody a bad reputation.

—Gail Lynch-Bailey, president of the Middle Island Civic Association

"People are reticent to patronize neighboring businesses as a result of what they suspect is going on."

In Hicksville, where authorities have raided at least 15 illegal massage spas in the last five years, complaints have come up at civic association meetings, said Eric Alexander, executive director of Vision Long Island, a not-for-profit that promotes smart growth.

Jeffrey Negron, president of the Northwest Civic Association of Hicksville, said the illicit businesses are a blight on the community.

"Who knows where these folks are coming from?" he said.

Lynch-Bailey said it isn’t just that community that’s hurt by such businesses. "There still is an ongoing concern for [the workers’] well-being because you have to question what their life was like before for them to resort to this type of work. It’s very, very sad, but it’s also intolerable."

Huntington Town has taken an aggressive approach to cracking down on illicit massage businesses by not only raiding them, but by imposing stiff fines as well. Working alongside police, town public safety inspectors have raided at least 37 spas, many of them more than once, in the last five years.

Along a less than 4-mile stretch of Jericho Turnpike in Huntington, police have raided 18 spas in the last four years. Along the same stretch of busy roadway there are a total of five coffee shops.

One person behind the push is Councilwoman Theresa Mari, who has worked with trafficking victims as a Family Court attorney.

"You just don’t want those terrible things happening in your community," she said. "Nobody wants to think that people are being victimized on a daily basis where they live in their backyard."

At her urging, the Huntington Town Board has increased fines for illicit businesses to create more of a deterrent. A business using its premises for prostitution can be charged with violating the town’s public nuisance code.

A business can be fined up to $15,000 and up to 15 days in jail for a first offense and up to $25,000, plus 15 days in jail, for additional offenses within five years.

Mari said she used to patronize a local spa for foot massages. Things changed when curtains went up and she noticed naked men lying in some of the partitioned areas. Feeling uncomfortable, she stopped going there. Later, she learned that police had raided the spa for prostitution.

Some spas are what authorities call "mixed use" — that is, they offer both legitimate massages and sexual services.

Mari and others have noted red flags that they believe something illicit is going on at a particular spa. Among them are the use of decals or curtains to block windows, staying open late, workers who only take cash and a large number of men patronizing the business.

At a recent hearing of the town’s code violation court, Yang Gao, a Flushing attorney, appeared on behalf of the Sugar Pine Spa, where two women were arrested for unlicensed massage and prostitution last fall. After being cited for multiple fire code violations, the spa owner vacated the premises and paid a $2,200 fine.

Joshua Price, the chief administrative law judge of Huntington’s Bureau of Administrative Adjudication gave Gao a warning:

"It can’t be done here. Not in my town. Not here. Go somewhere else."