AUGUSTA – Neighbors of the Asia Acupressure Therapy Center in Lisbon Falls were suspicious about all the men coming and going, but the women working inside constantly staying put.

In June 2004, police revealed that the center was actually a brothel.

The bust was made in connection with other human-trafficking cases on the East Coast.

The 39-year-old Korean facilitator, Doo Ri Kim, was sentenced to eight months in federal prison and then she would be deported. The three women working inside were deported. All four were illegal immigrants, smuggled in through Canada.

Lewiston Mayor Laurent Gilbert Sr. cited this case and others in Maine during a legislative judiciary committee hearing Wednesday supporting a bill to protect victims of human trafficking cases. Gilbert is a former Lewiston police chief and U.S. Marshal.

The victims in these cases, he said, are the foreigners lured to the United States to work through force, fraud or coercion – in other words, “modern day slavery.”

They are either forced into prostitution or another kind of labor.

“We do have a problem … This has been happening a long time,” Gilbert said. “It’s lurked beneath the surface and we’ve never gone looking there.”

Beth Stickney, executive director of the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, also testified before the committee Wednesday.

“It is far more likely that victims of human trafficking will be working in Maine’s seasonal industries, such in the agriculture, landscaping, forestry, hospitality sectors, or that they will be domestic servants, working in abusive situations,” she said.

Gilbert cited four other cases that have happened locally in recent years, all involving Asian women. He said police have uncovered massage parlors, spas and similar operations in South Portland, Old Orchard Beach, Bangor and Freeport in which women were forced to work in illegal businesses.

“It’s the fastest growing criminal industry in the world,” Gilbert said.

If passed, the bill would establish human trafficking as a crime – something done on the federal level, but not on the state level. It also mandates restitution for victims.

During Wednesday’s hearing, there was talk to establish a visa so the victims could stay in the country.

The bill also prohibits travel agencies from arranging travel for commercial sex purposes, and a “right to information” clause for the criminal histories of those using international matchmaking services.

The Maine Community Policing Institute, where Gilbert is an associate director, has a South Korean police captain working with it for six months while studying. Gilbert said Dong Kyun Shin has helped officials get to the bottom of these cases.

Now that the issue has been brought to light, local law enforcement officials can be trained to “look beneath the surface” to spot such operations.

Having this as a state law will give arresting officers more motive to do so, Gilbert said, as they are more familiar with state laws than local ones.

“Human beings are stripped of their dignity and become personal property,” he said.