Busting a massage parlor that’s really a front for prostitution is a

Busting a massage parlor that’s really a front for prostitution is a pretty standard score for the cops. But operating that same massage parlor after you’ve busted it? That’s rare. Like the blue moon of vice detective work. So why, then, did a Seattle police officer recently find herself offering $80 handjobs?Our story begins this past summer at the Rainier Foot Massage parlor owned by Liu Wei. Wei has only been in the country for 10 months. But he’s apparently a quick study on what sells in America.From June through September, undercover Seattle vice detectives made five visits to Wei’s parlor. According to court documents, each visit ended with the offer of a handjob. An offer that was declined.Earlier this month, detectives raided the parlor. They arrested Wei, his two female employees, $11,000 in cash and Western Union receipts for money transfers to China. Then they decided to stick around.For one day, detectives operated the shop as if it were business as usual. They arrested six men for soliciting an undercover female detective. A seventh, less discerning customer was sent home after actually having the gall to request a real rub-down, a confusing twist considering one undercover detective described his massage as “terrible.”Wei has now been charged with two counts of promoting prostitution, a felony. And court documents suggest that he may have been busted after placing Craigslist ads for “Beautiful Asian Massage.”But there’s no indication as to why vice detectives were sicked onto his scent. Nor why they thought it’d be a good idea to run shop for a day.Considering the natural reaction of a lot of taxpayers to investigative work like this is, “Don’t you have anything better to do?” we put a call in to Seattle police to see why Wei became a target. And why that target then shifted to his customers.