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Gwinnett woman charged with trafficking women, forcing them into sexual servitude

NORCROSS, Ga. — Police have arrested a woman they say used a Norcross apartment complex as a place of prostitution while keeping several women as sex slaves.
 
Channel 2's Kerry Kavanaugh combed through arrest records that show the 48-year-old suspect forced five women into sexual servitude.
 
Gwinnett County investigators say an undercover operation with Homeland Security led them to the five women.
 
They believe all the women were victims of human trafficking and put to work by a female pimp.
 
Kavanaugh obtained the booking video of 48-year-old Lorys Padilla shortly after she was arrested in Gwinnett County Wednesday.
 
According investigators, Gwinnett County police believe Padilla was a pimp running a brothel in a Norcross apartment complex off Dawson Boulevard.
 
Apartment residents say they had no idea what was allegedly taking place.
 
According to arrest warrants, the suspect did "knowingly maintain another person in sexual servitude ... by recruiting, harboring, providing and obtaining the victim for that purpose."
 
Warrant said Padilla directed customers to the location seven days a week through 10 p.m.
 
"This is happening on the web where a picture is posted and people can call in," said Whitney Bexley, with the nonprofit group Street Grace, which primarily brings awareness to child sex trafficking.
 
Bexley said the message to the public for all the victims is the same: Human trafficking is happening here in the United States right under our noses.
 
"We need to make sure that people know that this is going on so they can identify it and so that they can stop it," Bexley said.
 
"That is really crazy. (To) actually know people would actually force other people to do that," said resident Jasmine Ramos.
 
It's unclear at this point how the suspect found her alleged victims.