BATON ROUGE — A man accused of sex trafficking entered a guilty plea for conspiring to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion. 

According to court documents, Venezuelan citizen Allbert Herrera Machado entered a guilty plea in December for conspiring to commit sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion. 

Machado originally entered the country around March 2024 after Josmar Jesus Zambrano-Chirinos offered him a job in the United States. 

At the time, Zambrano-Chirinos, along with Osleidy Vanesa Chourio Diaz and others, were allegedly involved in a scheme recruiting women from other countries, arranging for them to enter the United States illegally and causing them to work as prostitutes to pay off their debts.

Documents said that Zambrano-Chirinos and Diaz rented an apartment in Baton Rouge where at least two women lived and worked as prostitutes. 

Machado, who resided in the apartment with the women, controlled their day-to-day activities by scheduling sexual encounters for the women, collecting payments from customers and communicating with Zambrano-Chirinos and Diaz about instructions related to the women. 

The instructions included how much the women worked, how much money they earned and if the women were allowed to leave the apartment.

Deputies with the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office searched the apartment on April 26, 2024, following a call from one of the women living in the apartment.

According to court records, deputies discovered evidence of the apartment being used as part of a prostitution business, including stacks of cash, used condoms, cell phones containing messages from potential "clients" who were asking to meet and several ledger books documenting how much money each woman made and how much of their debt remained.

Machado faces up to five years of imprisonment if convicted.