$10K Per Night: Cops Bust 'High-End' Prostitute Ring

(Newser) – Police say they have broken up a prostitution ring whose Wall Street clients paid some $10,000 a night. Cops arrested 17 of those running “High Class NY,” based out of an office in Brooklyn, on drug, prostitution, corruption, and money-laundering charges. They face up to 25 years in prison. The ring, which a DA said drew “high-end customers coming from the financial markets,” scored some $7 million over three years, charging between $400 and $3,600 an hour, the Wall Street Journal reports. Clients could reportedly get drugs upon request.

“For people like that, money is irrelevant," the DA said. "People with nothing but money who are willing to pay these enormous amounts for god knows what.” Multiple websites and ads drew in customers, notes the New York Daily News. An argument between a client and a prostitute last year sparked the undercover investigation. A lawyer for Mikhail Yampolsky, the head of the ring, said he had run an escort service and “if some of the models were engaged in prostitution on the side, he didn't know about it.”