Police Step Up Efforts Against Human Trafficking, Prostitution
(Note: This news item applies to Montgomery County as a whole and not just Rockville, but as this is an issue I care very deeply about, I am sharing it.)
Yesterday, the Montgomery County police outlined many of the initiatives they have been working on to bring their vice and human trafficking investigations into the 21st century. Human trafficking and modern slavery are serious problems. There are more slaves on the planet now than there were at any time in human history. It is not just an issue in other countries; there are reports of slavery here in Montgomery County. Much of the problem in the U.S. is centered on prostitution.
The Montgomery County police have been working both the demand side of the problem, with john stings, and the supply side, putting pressure on the Internet service providers who make it possible for sites like Eros and Backpage to exist. While this has had a positive effect in many respects, it has also pushed some of that enabling activity offshore, where it is harder to regulate. Vice, as always, is a cat-and-mouse enterprise between perpetrators and law enforcement.
Here, from the police, is a recap of the key initiatives:
- The Vice Section has effectively shut down escort websites that blatantly advertise activities that are illegal in Maryland. No other crime is so openly confessed to in any forum as the crime of human trafficking. The Vice Section is using a variety of investigative techniques to make web hosts accountable for their complicity in the advertising of human trafficking. Consequently, Web Hosts are eliminating the internet site from their servers. This tactic has eliminated the internet sites for TGND Talent, Diamond Escorts, and Desirable Companions. Sadly, these sites are now moving to servers outside the USA to continue their illegal activities.
- The Vice Section has effectively infiltrated the Erotic Review website and identified key members of the group. The Erotic Review is a website where members openly confess to illegal activities. The website’s members rate women’s appearance, sexual performance, etc. while providing information on contact numbers, organized crime outfits, and local police activities.
- The Vice Section through plea agreements is now operating established and once legitimate escort internet sites where “johns” are currently providing names, places of employment, and contact numbers as if they are communicating with the now defunct service. These contacts are being utilized to arrange “john stings” and identify individuals on the demand side of human trafficking.
- The Montgomery County Police Department has established a spread sheet that identifies all individuals advertising and participating in human trafficking in the jurisdiction of Montgomery County. This spreadsheet identifies participants in human trafficking by name, alias, escort service, telephone number, etc. The primary internet advertisers of human trafficking (EROS and Backpage) are being officially notified that these specific individuals are utilizing their site to participate in illegal activities. The Vice Section is also requesting that Backpage and EROS discontinue the future advertisement of these individuals or be prepared to be found complicit in the crime of human trafficking.
- The official notification to EROS and Backpage that probable cause exists that specific services and individuals have been found to be involved in human trafficking/prostitution and are utilizing their site to promote their illegal activities will eliminate their thinly veiled defense that they are not actively participating in prostitution. This official notification will place these sites into the position of possible civil and criminal ramifications for failure to refuse these individuals advertising space on the sites.
- The Vice Section has initiated outreach to individuals working in the sex trade. The goal of this outreach program is to provide workers in the sex trade industry a safe place to report violence against them. This outreach has resulted in one arrest warrant for robbery and a second report that should result in a warrant for violence committed against a sex worker.
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I wish the police would shut down the illegal house of prostitution in my office complex on RT 355. It endangers my staff, who are licensed, certified massage therapists, when men come to our office looking for this other place that advertises in the city paper. I’ve reported it for over a year now to no avail.