Two men were arrested on suspicion of sex trafficking, leading to the discovery of a brothel in Cypress Village on Oct. 16.
On Oct. 4, the Irvine Police Department received a call from a concerned Cypress Village resident who reported allegedly receiving a flyer advertising prostitution. The flier is said to have advertised “three beautiful young girls,” ending with “have a sexy night.” The two men were allegedly placing fliers on neighbors’ cars.
Karie Davies, an Irvine Police Department sergeant, spoke to the ongoing case.
“Our officer went out and collected the flier and passed that information on to our detectives. Our detectives were able to get a search warrant for the location and found that there were three victims [of sex trafficking] inside. They were all adult females, and the two suspects were arrested,” Davies told New University.
Qiyin Jiaqiyin, 51, of Irvine, and Xiaoming Ding, 36, of Whittier, were both arrested and taken to Orange County jail. Their bail has been set to $500,000 each.
Alleged sex trafficking scandals are not new to Irvine. Earlier this year, in April, Winston Jones, 33, was arrested on several human trafficking charges, including pimping. Undercover agents received information that a woman was suspected of being trafficked and tracked Jones and the woman to a hotel. There, Jones was arrested, and “the woman was ‘detained and safely removed from the situation’ by officers,” KTLA reported.
In Orange County, sex trafficking has risen significantly in the last decade. According to the 2022-2023 Orange County grand jury — a yearly report issued by the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force (OCHTTF) — the Orange County district attorney has prosecuted 773 felony cases of human trafficking, pimping and pandering since 2012.
Felipe Juarez Molina is a News Intern for the fall 2024 quarter. He can be reached at juarezmf@uci.edu.
Edited by Jaheem Conley
