PROVIDENCE -- She claimed she was just a cook at the Down Town Spa, but a special agent for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said yesterday that he recognized the woman as the manager of one of the city's busy brothels.

The middle-aged Korean woman folded and refolded her hands, exposing her flame-red nails, as special agent Michael Conlon told U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge David L. Martin about meeting Kyong Polachek inside the fourth-floor massage parlor this spring.

Polachek is one of 31 people arrested this week in a major federal crackdown on a human-trafficking ring that supplied women for brothels posing as massage parlors and health spas throughout the Northeast. The U.S. Attorney's offices in Southern and Eastern Districts of New York are bringing charges against the defendants, including conspiracy to engage in human trafficking, engaging in interstate transportation of women for prostitution, transporting illegal aliens, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.

Twenty brothels were closed, and more than 70 sex workers were freed and are being questioned by federal authorities. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Vilker in Rhode Island said there were no sex slave-related charges here.

Polachek is the only person arrested in Rhode Island and the Down Town Spa (or Down Town Acupressure), at 1 Custom House St., is the only alleged brothel in this state shut down by the investigation. The federal affidavit also named a second spa in Rhode Island, called Central, where the sex workers were making $18,000 to $20,000 a month.

During a court hearing to determine her identity, the 54-year-old woman shook her head as Conlon described how he'd determined that her name was Kyong Polachek, also known as "Ji-Yeon Kim," "Jennifer," and "Hana," and that she was involved in the Down Town Spa.

She had given Conlon her name when he and another special agent went to the spa on May 11 on a tip that a woman was being held against her will. They arrested four women working there on immigration charges, Vilker said. The tip remains under investigation, Vilker said.

According to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Eastern District of New York, word of the arrests in Providence spread immediately to one of the middlemen in Queens, N.Y., who supplied women for the brothels. The middleman got a call from "Big Sister MaekDo," the owner of Down Town, the next day, asking for sex workers with valid visas to replace those who'd been arrested. She needed them "immediately, as her business was extremely busy," the affidavit said.

In March, according to the affidavit, Polachek had dealt with a middleman to find her a young pretty girl for a "fantasy" brothel that she had opened in Flushing, N.Y.

Martin ordered Polachek held without bail to face a charge of engaging in interstate transportation of women for the purposes of prostitution in federal court in the Eastern District of New York.

Yesterday, a sign taped to the front door of the building that houses the spa said: "Sorry! Down Town closed today. Please come back!"

Down Town has been raided by the police before, only to reopen. Its paper sign said as much about the fate of this spa as it does about other brothels masquerading as massage parlors in Rhode Island -- it's tough for law enforcement to shutter them permanently.

About a dozen massage parlors and "health spas" in Rhode Island advertise in the adult classified section of the Providence Phoenix and on adult Web sites. The police say the massages are perfunctory. The real business is sex.

And police say they have few options to stop them.

Prostitution isn't illegal in Rhode Island as long as it occurs indoors. Only streetwalkers -- and the men who solicit them -- can be arrested for prostitution, because of a 26-year-old loophole in state law.

Last year, the police and Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline tried to convince state legislators to criminalize all forms of prostitution. They were rejected. Some legislators and the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union said the police should go after the brothel owners, not the prostitutes.

The General Assembly did pass a law cracking down on licensed massage therapists by requiring them to undergo criminal background checks and fingerprinting, and closing licensed businesses with unlicensed employees.

But the law has no effect on brothels, because the ones calling themselves massage parlors aren't licensed, and the state doesn't require businesses to be licensed, said Providence police Lt. Thomas Verdi.

So, the police have arrested the alleged prostitutes and brothel managers on charges of giving a massage without a license.

But Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Procaccini ended that option in April, when he dismissed a charge against a woman managing the Midori Spa in Providence. The judge agreed the woman was managing a so-called massage facility and working without a license. But the judge disagreed on the definition and benefit of the massage, said a spokesman for the attorney general's office.

Since the woman wasn't trained to give a massage, it was just a body rub, said Providence police Maj. Stephen Campbell. And there is no law against that.

"It's a bit ironic that the more unprofessional the massage is, the more difficult it is to prove a case," said Michael J. Healey, spokesman for the attorney general's office.

Campbell and Verdi said they are trying other options. They've shut down brothels for housing and fire code violations. They've brought in a Korean interpreter and counselors from Family Services to offer help to the arrested prostitutes.

But the women ignore them and walk out, Campbell said, leaving in vehicles provided by the spas.

amilkovi@projo.com / (401) 277-7213