NORRISTOWN, Pa. (WPVI) — A drive-by shooting between two alleged rival sex traffickers last week led investigators to uncover competing prostitution operations running between New York City and Norristown, Pennsylvania, according to newly filed court documents.
Police say the incident happened Feb. 13 on the 400 block of Sandy Street, where 24-year-old Efran Flores-Rodriguez allegedly shot 42-year-old Fernando Meza-Ramirez in the leg.
Investigators later discovered that both men were “in the business of running women from New York City to Norristown for the purposes of prostitution.”
April Montanez, who lives next door to Flores-Rodriguez on Jacoby Street, said she had grown uneasy about late-night activity at the home.
From left to right: Fernando Meza-Ramirez and Efran Flores-Rodriguez
“It is crazy and it’s dangerous. This block has been very quiet until they started coming around. I don’t know if it’s been two months,” Montanez said.
She described hearing people entering and leaving the property at all hours.
“That door, when it shuts, it’s like a thump, thump, thump. And it was like, man, 2 o’clock in the morning, and they’re like thump, thump. I was like, what the heck is going on here?” Montanez said.
Doorbell camera video from a neighbor captured SWAT officers arriving at Flores-Rodriguez’s home on Tuesday. Inside, officers found a female sex trafficking victim.
She said she worked for both men, separately, and in both arrangements, she was transported to clients for sex and received half of the profits. She said the men would shuttle her back and forth to her home in New York.
She also told investigators Meza-Ramirez had been operating a prostitution ring in Norristown for about five years, and that Flores-Rodriguez had recently begun encroaching on the same territory.
Montanez said the situation left her family on edge.
Police said Meza-Ramirez was in the country illegally and believed Flores-Rodriguez was as well. Both men were denied bail and remain in custody in Montgomery County.
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