MIAMI (Tribune News Service) — Three Cuban men, including a ringleader arrested in Miami, have been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to sex-trafficking and other charges of smuggling Cuban women into the United States and forcing them to work in strip clubs to pay off their debts.

The leader, Rasiel Gutierrez Moreno, 28, was sentenced to 17-1/2 years in Houston federal court on Wednesday after admitting that he smuggled about 20 women from Cuba to the United States and made them pay inflated debts up to $30,000 for the illicit trip, according to court records. Gutierrez Moreno admitted that he forced the women to dance at strip clubs in the Houston area and engage in prostitution with patrons to pay down their debts, according to a 2021 plea agreement.

Gutierrez Moreno admitted coercing one unidentified woman, “Victim 1,” by bragging about committing acts of violence against other women and their families, according to investigators with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and Homeland Security Investigations.

“Gutierrez Moreno beat another woman shortly before Victim 1 arrived at his home and ensured that Victim 1 observed that woman’s injuries,” the Justice Department said in a news release. “When Victim 1 escaped Gutierrez Moreno, [he] contacted her family in both Miami and Cuba to demand that she return to work and finish paying her debt.”

As part of his punishment, Gutierrez Moreno was also ordered to pay about $451,000 in restitution.

His associate, Hendry Jimenez Milanes, 39, who pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement charges last year, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was ordered to pay about $359,000 in restitution.

Another associate, Rafael Mendoza Labrada, 29, who pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge in 2021, was sentenced to about three years — time he had already served in federal custody.

“These human smugglers terrorized female migrants, using Houston’s strip clubs combined with psychological threats and sexual violence for their personal financial gain,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani in the Southern District of Texas said in a statement.

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