Accused sex trafficker used drugs to keep women working for days, MI officials say

A Michigan man accused of human trafficking fed women drugs to keep them working for days without sleep, according to officials.

Quincy Lamar Bland, a 43-year-old Waterford resident, is facing seven felony charges related to human sex trafficking and drugs, the Oakland County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said in a Dec. 3 news release.

Bland was charged on Nov. 27, two days after officers with the Waterford Police Department interviewed “a possible human trafficking victim,” officials said. Police learned that she and another woman were being forced into prostitution by Bland, who officials said trafficked them “out of a variety of hotels and motels” in Waterford and elsewhere.

Officials say Bland “controlled the victims through violence, threats of violence” and by giving them drugs “to keep them awake and working, sometimes for multiple days at a time.”

Following the interview, police got a warrant to search Bland’s home, leading to his arrest on Nov. 26. Inside the home, investigators found “a large amount of cash,” several cell phones and two scales, police said, adding that Bland was also carrying meth, heroin and crack.

He was booked into the Oakland County jail.

“Human traffickers operate in the shadows, exploiting vulnerable victims, and controlling them through multiple means, including making and keeping them dependent on drugs, and on violence and threats of violence. The cases we are seeing now are only the tip of the iceberg — human trafficking is a massive problem that requires a massive response,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said in the release.

Bland is charged with engaging in a human trafficking enterprise resulting in injury/commercial sexual activity, accepting earnings from prostitution, transporting a person for purposes of prostitution, delivery or manufacture of less than 50 grams of controlled substance and two counts of assault and battery, according to officials.

Waterford is a suburb of Detroit and is a roughly 30-mile drive northwest from the city’s downtown.

This story was originally published December 3, 2024 at 4:37 PM with the headline "Accused sex trafficker used drugs to keep women working for days, MI officials say."