The alleged traffickers were arrested in October 2014 and held without bond, Miami-Dade jail records show. There, the captors told the slaves they weren’t allowed to leave the house “because they could not speak English and were not familiar with the area,” according to the arrest warrant.īut two months after they arrived at the plush four-bedroom residence, a tipster alerted federal authorities to the victims’ plight, sparking an investigation that would ultimately end the sickening scheme, WPLG reported. Sometime around August 2013, the ring moved to Miami, fearing one of their escorts had contacted New York authorities, according to WPLG. “It’s OK if you are gay,” the posting reportedly said. was seeking a hairdresser to work in New York, according to WPLG.
In one Hungarian job site, Never Sleep Inc. According to prosecutors, Acs told the men he could “make all of them disappear like they never even existed,” WPLG reported.īerki often warned the men he was a cop in Hungary and had connections that could hurt their families if they refused to work, authorities said.Īs they allegedly kept the young men captive, the brutes were apparently seeking more victims using social media and online job ads. The sickos allegedly threatened to kill their victims-sometimes while bullying them with a samurai sword-if they tried to escape. Berki reportedly told the witness his twisted plot raked in $40,000 a week, according to WPLG. One Hungarian witness told authorities that Berki described Acs and Vass as his boyfriends. In online ads, the men were called “honey boy or hot boy,” WPLG Local 10 reported. Prosecutors say the Hungarian men pimped out their victims for $200 to $400 an hour on websites including and.
The captors seized their travel documents and identification, and used “financial manipulation to keep them in constant debt,” Pavlikowski wrote in the warrant. Once the men arrived, they moved to Brooklyn into a cramped one-bedroom apartment, where up to eight people lived and worked, the Herald reported. The victims “believed they would only be in New York for a few months to make tens of thousands of dollars before returning to their homeland and their families,” said federal agent Melissa Pavlikowski in an arrest warrant. In 2012, the company allegedly flew the three victims-ages 20 to 22-to New York City for what they believed was a legal enterprise, the Herald reported. Another victim allegedly met Acs on Facebook while he was “living with gypsies” and working as a prostitute. Prosecutors say the trio ran a business called Never Sleep Inc., and lured victims, who did not speak English, through a website called. “After I do my time, I would like to start a new clean life and I’m asking for God’s help and I pray every day for forgiveness.” “I know very well that I am culpable,” the convicted trafficker added.
The Herald also reported on Vass’s statements during the proceeding. “I got revved up with such people who are not law-abiding people,” Vass told the court, through an interpreter, according to NBC Miami. His attorney, Adam Goodman, said, “He wasn’t the one who committed the violence.” Vass said he was victimized himself and forced to marry one of his tormenters before becoming a boss in the trafficking ring, the Herald reported. Vass’s alleged co-conspirators, Gabor Acs, 32, and Viktor Berki, 30, a former policeman in Hungary, are awaiting trial.Ĭircuit Judge Richard Hersch sentenced Vass to just over 140 months in state prison-a lesser sentence apparently due in part to his own alleged victimhood. “I was under their control, all day, all night,” the man said. I lost all my friends.”Īnother victim read a statement in court revealing how he was treated like a “machine.” “I started drinking heavily to try and forget. “It’s really hard for me to socialize, to mingle with people,” one victim testified through a Hungarian interpreter, according to the Herald. Nearly two years in captivity left the victims with deep emotional wounds. He was forced into prostitution and made to perform sex acts on live web cameras for little to no pay-only extra food or cigarettes, the Herald reported. The suspects allegedly raped him and kept him locked in bedrooms in two cities.