On Wednesday, May 28, Min Dong and Qi Guo, from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, confessed to operating a prostitution ring out of illicit massage businesses located in Cumberland County. According to court documents, Dong and Guo pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit prostitution and human trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion.
The investigation in Cumberland County began in 2018 but was halted during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. County detectives reopened the investigation in 2023. The two women, along with three other co-defendants, were charged in 2023 following a lengthy investigation into illicit massage businesses located in Mechanicsburg, Camp Hill, Lemoyne, and Lower Allen Township.
During the investigation, authorities found evidence of prostitution activity at the businesses through surveillance, searches that revealed discarded condoms, and through interviews with men who allegedly admitted to paying for sex acts. According to the court documents, advertisements for the businesses also appeared on adult websites.
Detectives used county property data, state business records, and banking information to identify Guo and Dong as the owners of the properties where the spas operated. The other three defendants, Zigui Zheng, Shibiao Hu and Yan Qiu, were allegedly associated with the spas as business owners or managers. Prosecutors also charged Zheng, Hu, and Qiu with promoting prostitution, human trafficking, corrupt organizations, dealing in illegal proceeds, and conspiracy.
The Cumberland County case coincides with a similar investigation into prostitution that authorities conducted at four separate spa properties in York County, which Dong and Guo also allegedly owned and operated. Prosecutors filed charges against the pair and five other co-defendants in late 2023 and early 2024. Dong was sentenced to probation for her role in the York County prostitution scheme in January 2025.
According to a witness who partnered with Dong to start spas, Dong would get the business started and then sell the management to a new owner through online ads. Dong and Guo, as the property owners and leaseholders, collected rent and portions of the profit from the spa managers. The witness added, however, that Dong retained operational control and could take back a spa from a manager if the arrangement failed.
The Cumberland County investigation was conducted as a part of an anti-human trafficking operation. Additionally, local staff at the YWCA in York City provided health services and resources to women from the spa locations.
The CSE Institute has written about illicit massage businesses before. Unfortunately, these businesses are a prominent venue for sex buying in the Commonwealth and neighboring states. The annual revenue for these illegal establishments is estimated at approximately $2.5 billion nation-wide. Victims in these businesses are promised work opportunities and a better quality of life, but then are trapped in a cycle of cultural manipulation, fraud, and coercion. The women sold for sex in illicit massage business are often immigrants of Eastern Asian descent. The complex vulnerabilities associated with race, ethnicity, immigration, and class often prevent victims of exploitation from immediately self-identifying as trafficking victims to law enforcement or service providers. For more information on the issues that illicit massage businesses pose and our proposed solutions, see our 2024 Annual Report.
The CSE Institute commends the diligent efforts of the authorities whose investigations led to the prosecution of Dong and Guos’ crimes.
The CSE Institute will continue to provide updates as they become available.
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.