Brock Landers
02-19-2011, 07:47 AM
LAS VEGAS — On the Las Vegas Strip, it is a familiar, if unpleasant, juxtaposition -- families with strollers warily slipping past the outstretched hands of the ubiquitous smut peddlers. The kids are curious about the colorful handbills pitching college coeds direct to your hotel room.
It might seem like a long way from the skanky women on rolling billboards to the classiest zip codes in Nevada -- Lake Las Vegas, Spanish Trail -- but not really. The so-called escort companies rake in millions per year, allowing their owners to live in luxury, under a veneer of respectability.
"There are several criminal enterprises here in Las Vegas and it is no secret they are living large," said IRS Special Agent Paul Camacho.
Agent Camacho, chief of criminal investigations in Las Vegas, says he continues to amaze his fellow tax cops around the country when he tells them about the cases he works here and the over-the-top excess.
Camacho has already turned up the heat on the big money pool parties, on tax crimes in topless joints, on $1,000-a-bottle nightclubs. Now, he has a new partner -- Metropolitan Police Department's vice squad. Their new target is the big time pimp. Not street level mack daddies, but millionaire escort operators -- the ones who really spend money.
"They are living in nice neighborhoods, driving nice cars. It's been fruitful for them," said Camacho. "It's like taking the kids to Disneyland, putting them in Disneyland and tell them don't go on the rides. These folks are going to go on the rides and Vegas is their Disneyland." View Full Article (http://www.8newsnow.com/story/14061266/i-team-irs-joins-the-fight-against-prostitution-trade)
It might seem like a long way from the skanky women on rolling billboards to the classiest zip codes in Nevada -- Lake Las Vegas, Spanish Trail -- but not really. The so-called escort companies rake in millions per year, allowing their owners to live in luxury, under a veneer of respectability.
"There are several criminal enterprises here in Las Vegas and it is no secret they are living large," said IRS Special Agent Paul Camacho.
Agent Camacho, chief of criminal investigations in Las Vegas, says he continues to amaze his fellow tax cops around the country when he tells them about the cases he works here and the over-the-top excess.
Camacho has already turned up the heat on the big money pool parties, on tax crimes in topless joints, on $1,000-a-bottle nightclubs. Now, he has a new partner -- Metropolitan Police Department's vice squad. Their new target is the big time pimp. Not street level mack daddies, but millionaire escort operators -- the ones who really spend money.
"They are living in nice neighborhoods, driving nice cars. It's been fruitful for them," said Camacho. "It's like taking the kids to Disneyland, putting them in Disneyland and tell them don't go on the rides. These folks are going to go on the rides and Vegas is their Disneyland." View Full Article (http://www.8newsnow.com/story/14061266/i-team-irs-joins-the-fight-against-prostitution-trade)