Korean Heaven
The secret life of No. 88
The secret life of No. 88
PETER CHENEY
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 16, 2006UPDATED SEPTEMBER 16, 2006
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 16, 2006
This article was published more than 10 years ago. Some information in it may no longer be current.
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With its sweeping curves, young trees and perfectly kept homes, Castleridge Drive is the very picture of the good life, Richmond Hill-style: Families come and go in their new minivans and polished SUVs. Children ride their skateboards and play basketball. The lawns are manicured, and the smell of barbecuing drifts on the early fall breeze.
"It's a great neighbourhood," says Jason Rodney, accompanied by his six-year-old daughter, Zöe, who is busy collecting acorns. "It's a great place to raise a family."
And for at least a few months, Castleridge was also a great place to run a house of ill repute. After all, who would have suspected that No. 88, a two-storey beauty with casement windows, stone siding and a two-car garage, was in fact a thriving bawdy house that netted thousands of dollars every day?
"It was the perfect cover," says Detective Chris Palmer, head of the York Regional Police vice unit that raided the highly unusual home-based operation last week. "If people on the street hadn't called us, we'd never have found it."
Mr. Rodney, who works as the manager of business development for a medical firm, says he is still stunned by the discovery, and what he has since learned about the secret life of No. 88. "It's incredible," he says. "I had no clue about what was going on. They were very quiet about it. Obviously, not quiet enough."
Now, even the neighbourhood kids know what happened. "That's the place where people sold their bodies," Zöe announces.
Police all over the city have successfully cracked down on prostitution operations running out of massage parlours, but Det. Palmer says this is the first one his force has busted in a suburban family-home setting. It represents a shift in criminal behaviour, he says, that could be compared to the changes in marijuana production, where growers have made a wholesale change from outdoor rural operations to suburban grow-ops located in family neighbourhoods.
Ironically, rising awareness of home-based grow-ops may have contributed to this bust. A few years ago, the operators of No. 88 might have kept their business secret, he says. "Grow-ops have taught people to be suspicious."
But no was suspicious when the Castleridge operators rented the house last winter. For them, No. 88 offered what appeared to be a perfect cover. The environment is about as far as you can get from a red-light district. The neighbours shuttle their children to soccer, hockey and violin lessons. Houses in the area sell for $600,000 and up.
"They kept to themselves," a close neighbour says. "We didn't think anything. We didn't think about someone running a whorehouse."
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The first inklings of what was really going on came a few months ago, when neighbours started noticing a few odd details. Cars would drive by the house, slow down, then return. Ferraris and Lexuses would park on nearby streets for a short time, then reappear a few days later. Attractive young women would arrive at the house in the morning. And during the day and evening, a steady stream of men would arrive, always alone.
One neighbour who has lived on nearby Kew Gardens says he first began noticing the row of luxury cars parked across the street a few months ago. "You think it's a grow-op?" he asked a fishing buddy who lived across from the house.
"No," the buddy replied. "I think it's a whorehouse."
Neighbours called the police, and for weeks, Det. Palmer and his fellow officers staked out the house, watching what went on. As they soon learned, No. 88 was known as Korean Heaven, and catered to a mostly Asian clientele. The house attracted an average of 40 to 60 customers a day, but the numbers sometimes varied wildly.
"It was like a Becker's store," Det. Palmer says. "Sometimes there were no customers, then it would get busy. There were times when you couldn't get parking on the street."
Unlike typical massage parlours, which offer masturbation and "body slides," where an oiled attendant slides up against the customer, No. 88 allegedly offered a complete range of sexual services, including intercourse. The average payment was $120, but some customers paid much more.
Korean Heaven ran with the precision of a well-run fast-food restaurant -- virtually every customer arrived and left within 30 minutes. "You could set your watch by it," Det. Palmer says.
Its services were advertised by word of mouth, and through forums held on websites like Toronto Escorts Review Board and Behind Closed Doors, where customers traded connections and cell numbers. Most of the customers were Korean, but aside from that, there were few points of commonality. Some were single, others were married or divorced. One owned a construction company. One drove a dump truck. Another was a corporate vice-president.
Det. Palmer wasn't surprised by the diversity of the clientele. As his years on the vice squad have taught him, there's no typical profile: "It's impossible to pigeonhole the bawdy-house customer. It can be almost anyone."
By early September, police had the evidence they needed, and on Sept. 8 the officers swept in. Dozens cordoned off the area just before 5 p.m. Armed tactical unit officers surrounded the house and cut off avenues of escape, then pounded through the front door with a steel battering ram. As they poured in to the house, they captured a frozen moment in the life of a bawdy house: In the front room, watching television, was the "door-greeter," a young man whose job was to answer the doorbell and tell customers which room to go to. Upstairs were four prostitutes and three male customers.
The johns and prostitutes were handcuffed and taken out to waiting police cruisers. Four women working in the house were also charged. The operation apparently involved an Asian connection. The girls working in the house, all in their early 20s, were visitors to Canada, and were carrying valid Korean passports. The house ran around the clock, with four to six girls working at a time.
Although he refused to give details, Det. Palmer says police are still investigating the criminal links involved in the operation of the house. (The landlord was not aware of the activity taking place in the house, he said.) The Korean Heaven operation was apparently quite profitable -- police seized more than $15,000 in cash during the raid.
Until recently, massage parlours were booming in Richmond Hill. In 2002, there were more than 180, and in one strip mall alone (located on East Beaver Creek Road), 11 of the 15 units were occupied by massage parlours that offered sex for money. These kind of operations have proved highly vulnerable to undercover police -- Det. Palmer and his fellow officers have laid hundreds of charges, resulting in a dramatic downturn in the business. Today, police say, there are just 27 massage parlours in Richmond Hill, a reduction of 85 per cent compared with 2002.
But Det. Palmer offers grudging admiration for the criminal mind: "They're not stupid, and they go with what works. They move from bank robbery to debit fraud. They start grow-ops. And now this house. This is a logical progression. They need to stay under the police radar."
Word of the police raid went out on the websites this week.
"That place is a disaster waiting to happen," said one on-line visitor after learning that Korean Heaven was no more. "I think the owner is too greedy and careless, he should have had his operation out of a condo building or a house in a remote area where neighbours were not too nosy."
Some clients didn't get the news. A paunchy man in his mid-40s arrived at the door this week after parking his BMW two streets away. The lights inside No. 88 were still burning after the police raid, and through the windows, he could see clear signs of disarray -- some of the furniture had been overturned.
"What's happening?" the customer asked.
"Closed," he was told.
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