The investigation includes a 15-year-old Twin Cities girl suspected of being forced into prostitution by the gang, according to a search warrant issued in the probe.
The investigation involves St. Paul police, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement task force.
A local ICE spokesman said Wednesday that the investigation was ongoing, and all three agencies referred inquiries to the U.S. attorney's office in Nashville, Tenn., where Assistant U.S. Attorney Van Vincent said he couldn't confirm or deny the investigation.
Heather Caillier of the St. Paul-based nonprofit Breaking Free said she has heard for a couple of years about women and girls in the Twin Cities Somali community being forced into prostitution.
She said the main concern of her organization is helping victims, but they've had difficulty reaching them because of cultural barriers.
Based on information from the search warrant, Caillier said, the case "could have pretty serious implications, and it sounds like it's more of an organized-crime type of ring."
"This opens up and sheds light on an issue we know is going on and nobody's really talking about," she said. "It's not just in the Somali community. It's all over the place."
The warrant in the case was filed in Ramsey County District Court on Friday, and KSTP-TV obtained a copy of it Monday. The warrant has since been sealed and is no longer available.
KSTP broke the story about the investigation Tuesday night and provided a copy of the warrant to the Pioneer Press on Wednesday.
Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension special agent Ann Quinn, who applied for the warrant, wrote in her affidavit that St. Paul police Sgt. John Bandemer asked her in July to help find a 15-year-old girl needed as a material witness in federal court in Nashville as part of a human trafficking investigation.
Bandemer, who heads the Gerald D. Vick Human Trafficking Task Force, said the girl "had a long history of being a runaway and was being victimized" by a group of Somali men who were "promoting her into prostitution."
Quinn also spoke with St. Paul police officer Heather Weyker, who had questioned the girl in July 2009 when she was arrested in connection with a Richfield robbery. At that time, the girl lied about her identity and about being involved in prostitution, according to the affidavit.
Quinn wrote that Weyker later learned from other witnesses that the girl had been forced into prostitution by Somali gangs.
With the cooperation of the girl's family, St. Paul police and the FBI detained her July 23 and took her to Tennessee for testimony July 28. She returned home, but she was reported to Minneapolis police as a runaway again on Aug. 2, the affidavit said.
Since then, the girl has been implicated in assaults in Rochester, Minn., and was arrested as an adult — after lying about her identity — on suspicion of auto theft in Olmsted County, Quinn wrote.
The girl was cited for tampering with an auto and taken to Ramsey County and then Hennepin County on outstanding warrants. She was in custody as of Sept. 13, the day Quinn applied for the warrant.
The warrant was to search the girl's cell phone. Because the girl "does not have a permanent home and often stayed with various members of this prostitution gang," Quinn wrote that she believed the phone was the girl's main way of communicating with gang members and prostitution customers.
Quinn wrote that she was also looking for photos on the phone that could reveal the identities of suspects, witnesses and additional victims. Records do not describe what investigators found on the phone.
Regarding the warrant's availability, BCA spokeswoman Jill Oliveira said Wednesday: "My understanding is it was filed and they made the decision to seal, but before it was sealed it was accessed by some media." She said she didn't know if the warrant was supposed to be sealed from the beginning.
In May 2009, Weyker applied for and received a warrant in an investigation into a juvenile prostitution ring run by Somali gang members. A girl, whose age wasn't noted, told an investigator that four males had sexually assaulted her in Brooklyn Park the month before, according to another search warrant affidavit.
A police spokesman said at the time that St. Paul police were involved in the investigation because of the department's human trafficking efforts and that federal and local law enforcement agencies were also involved.
At the time, police said no one had been arrested in the case. No state or federal charges appear to have been filed against one man named in that earlier affidavit, according to court records.
Source: PioneerPress