Four Suspected of Operating Illicit Massage Businesses, Including Ex-San Diego Vice Cop

A former San Diego police officer has been charged with allegedly operating illicit massage businesses that offered commercial sex services, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Friday.

Peter Griffin, 78, a former vice detective and attorney, was arrested Thursday morning shortly after leaving his San Diego home, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Co-defendants Kyung Sook Hernandez, 58, and Yu Hong Tan, 56, were also arrested Thursday. A fourth defendant remains at large.

Prosecutors said Griffin owned and operated five businesses in California and Arizona with his co-defendants between 2013 and 2022. The defendants advertised sexual services online and employed “multiple women” to perform those services, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Regarding his former work in the San Diego Police Department’s Vice Unit, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Griffin worked in “a unit tasked with dismantling the businesses he now stands charged with operating and promoting.”

Three groups led the investigation – Homeland Security Investigations, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and the San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force, a regional, multi-agency effort led by the California Department of Justice.

The task force is comprised of numerous federal, state, and local agencies as well as the Southwest Border High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.

– City News Service