OPIATE CRISIS PUSHES

Tech-savvy pimps make life harrowing for victims

The opiate scourge has created a sad wave of desperate addicts lured into ruthless sex trafficking rings — right from rehabs and methadone clinics — even as a tough, new law has given cops a powerful tool to take dozens of internet-savvy pimps off the streets, a Herald investigation has found.

The victims’ stories are harrowing. Some girls sold for sex are as young as 11 years old. They’re kept in hotel rooms for days on end, forced to make nightly quotas. Some are sold for sex by their own family members. The girls being trafficked come from cities and suburbs. And if they aren’t already using drugs, many start using them later, as a means to cope with their nightmare ordeals.

“It’s happening in your backyard. It is happening in communities that are urban, rural and suburban across this state,” said Attorney General Maura Healey, who has targeted human trafficking as a top priority of her administration.

Since a new state antihuman trafficking law passed in 2012 toughened penalties against pimps and sex buyers, and recognized girls being sex trafficked as victims rather than criminals, the AG’s office has charged 34 people with sex trafficking — and seven of them were convicted.

Hendricks Mario Berdet, charged last month with running a human trafficking racket that preyed on girls with drug problems, showcased heroin’s horrible human toll. Berdet’s case is now before a grand jury.

“Human traffickers are literally targeting and preying upon women, in particular who are drug addicted,” Healey told the Herald. “With the opiate crisis, we’re seeing a rise in this kind of activity. It’s so sad because traffickers will literally line up outside clinics and try to lure women into this industry with promises of drugs.

“We know from our own cases that they’re sometimes kept in hotel rooms or motel rooms or apartments for hours, days at a time, simply with drugs delivered to them,” Healey said. “It’s just wrong. More and more of our victims we know to be drug addicted and in need of

STAFF PHOTO BY ANGELA ROWLINGS; STAFF FILE PHOTO, INSET, BY JOHN WILCOX FOCUSED ON THE FIGHT: Lisa Goldblatt Grace, above, runs an organization that targets sex trafficking, which has been a priority of Attorney General Maura Healey.