100+ used condoms found during search of alleged residential Denver brothel

DENVER (KDVR) -- A grand jury handed down an eight-count indictment against a pair of in-laws accused of running a “residential brothel” out of a Denver home.

Investigators accused Xiaoli Gao, 51, and Zhong Wei Zhang, 49, of laundering money received from a prostitution operation through a nearby Chinese massage business that Gao owned.

Gao and Zhang are facing charges related to pimping and prostitution in addition to money laundering, filing a false tax return and violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act.

According to the indictment, Gao and Zhang are accused of setting up a brothel at a home in southwest Denver.

A neighbor who lived next door to the alleged brothel house, said he would watch dozens of men visit the house at all hours of the day. Sometimes, he said, he counted 30 customers per day.

He said his wife called the human trafficking hotline when things started spilling onto his property and he worried for their safety.

“That call was the sole information that we had to start this investigation,” said Lara Mullin, a senior deputy district attorney in the Denver District Attorney's Office. Mullin heads the human trafficking unit, according to McCann.

The indictment indicates that investigators found “over 100 used condoms, a paper with Chinese characters that appeared to be a ledger, KY gel containers and used tissues,” when they searched the trash outside of the house. Investigators also found that sex-related advertisements were placed on the Backpage.com website listing prices for sexual services.

A surveillance camera outside of the home also captured video of 257 men who came and went from the home and stayed for 30 minutes or less between mid-March 2018 and mid-August 2018.