MIAMI -- Three Cuban men, including a ringleader arrested in Miami, have been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to sex-trafficking and other charges of smuggling Cuban women into the United States and forcing them to work in strip clubs to pay off their debts.
The leader, Rasiel Gutierrez Moreno, 28, was sentenced to 17-1/2 years in Houston federal court on Wednesday after admitting that he smuggled about 20 women from Cuba to the United States and made them pay inflated debts up to $30,000 for the illicit trip, according to court records. Gutierrez Moreno admitted that he forced the women to dance at strip clubs in the Houston area and engage in prostitution with patrons to pay down their debts, according to a 2021 plea agreement.
Gutierrez Moreno admitted coercing one unidentified woman, “Victim 1,” by bragging about committing acts of violence against other women and their families, according to investigators with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and Homeland Security Investigations.
