Detectives to take aim at ‘demand side’ of human trafficking
Detectives battling the commercial sex trade -- who have arrested of nearly a dozen men in the Santa Clarita Valley since March -- are now targeting the “demand side” of the illicit business, the sheriff said Thursday.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell announced detectives assigned to LASD’s Human Trafficking Bureau will be partnering with social media to disrupt the demand side of commercial sex through cybertechnology.
On Thursday, marking the second anniversary of the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force, McDonnell announced a new approach aimed at the solicitation of sex workers.
Specifically, calling for a partnership between detectives with the Human Trafficking Bureau and a nonprofit group called Demand Abolition, which is dedicated to impacting human trafficking by eradicating the demand for exploited commercial sex workers.
The announcement came on the heels of a local arrest made Sunday of a 40-year-old unemployed, homeless man on suspicion he was engaged in human trafficking.
Sheriff Department’s Lt. Kent Wegener said he couldn’t reveal the suspect’s information at this time as it was part of an ongoing investigation.
The suspect is accused of violating section 236.1 of the California penal code defined as anyone: “who deprives or violates the personal liberty of another with the intent to obtain forced labor or services, is guilty of human trafficking and shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for 5, 8, or 12 years and a fine of not more than five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000).”
The suspect remains in custody with bail set at $100,000.
Lewd behavior
Sunday’s arrest marks the 11th man to be arrested by the Human Trarfficking Bureau in the SCV since March, when four men – three of them residents of Newhall were arrested on suspicion of making arrangements to meet a minor for lewd behavior.
In April, detectives posted online advertisements offering sex with girls between the ages of 14 and 16, and ended up arresting four men Thursday, one local and three from out of town, on suspicion of making arrangements to meet a minor for lewd behavior.
In October, they arrested two more local men – each described as a having professional careers, also on suspicion of arranging to meet a minor for the purpose of engaging in lewd behavior.
Those two suspects – a 63-year-old respiratory therapist from Oak Park, and a 46-year-old finance manager of Valencia – were arrested late Thursday afternoon by detectives with the specialized unit of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Online business
McConnell’s announcement came during a news news conference at the Hall of Justice, and, in forming the new partnership, he declared Los Angeles County a CEASE – or, Cities Empowered Against Sexual Exploitation network community.
The benefit, he explained, of joining this network of 11 other communities across the nation is the availability of 21st century technology to disrupt the buying and selling of human beings online, and arrest illegal sex buyers through cyber-based strategies.
With the advantage of a wide variety and number of social media applications, the availability and ease of committing sex-based crimes outpaced the ability to perform operations, according to McDonnell.
To counteract this, he said, CEASE Network digital strategies use open-source data to identify high-frequency buyers seeking underage girls; having this use of technology now available will greatly assist the task force detectives in pursuing criminal investigations or offering education to sex buyers who may not realize they are breaking the law.
With the employment of CEASE Network services, task force detectives are expected to gain the advantage of capturing more information about purchasers and their general profile, and thus be in a better position to strategically target online advertisements.