Bellevue police make more arrests in massage fraud cases


June 10, 2012 · Updated 4:50 PM 

Bellevue police have made seven more arrests in an ongoing effort to shut down unlicensed masseuses in the city.

In some cases, the same person has been arrested for a second time, which increases the violation to a Class C felony, police said.

“It is frustrating to find people we have already arrested on similar violations are out there the next day, illegally working in our city.  We will work with the Department of Health to identify, contact and arrest individuals that continue to break the law”, said Det. Tor Kraft.

In this last round of inspections, seven were arrested, five of which were owners and co-owners of the spas and two employees.

In September of 2011, the Bellevue Police vice division received information from the Washington State Department of Health and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations  that a number of regional massage practitioner’s licenses had been obtained fraudulently.

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