((ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTIONS, PHOTOS))
The National Human Trafficking Hotline has received reports of 22,191 sex trafficking cases inside the United States in the past decade. (Polaris Project)
((PKG)) SEX TRAFFICKING / SEX STING
((Banner: The Sting))
((Reporter: Carolyn Presutti))
((Camera: Mike Burke))
((Adapted by: Martin Secrest))
((Map: United States / Baltimore, Maryland))
((Locator: backpage.com))
((Locator: Baltimore, Maryland))
((Banner: Corporal Chris Heid of the Maryland State Police looks for minors being sex trafficked on the Internet))
((CORPORAL CHRIS HEID, MARYLAND STATE POLICE))
So Backpage, it’s a legitimate website, and we go in here, like I said, daily. So, I’m obviously going to go to Maryland. And sometimes we go to the District of Columbia. But now this is kind of like a, almost like a Craigslist type thing. But then we’ll look here at these different ads, and we’re going to scroll through and we’re going to look for the girls that look really young. We’re also looking for pictures of girls that aren’t taking their own photos. Because if that’s the case, there’s probably somebody else in that room with them. Under here, there used to be an actual section called ‘Escorts,’ and they’ve changed that now, and now it just says, ‘Women Seeking Men.’ But if you click on there, you’ve got to agree that you’re over the age of 18, and you can just see the amount of ads that were posted just today.
((NATS))
You want to try this one?
((Banner: Posing as a customer, Heid calls a listing he suspects involves an underage girl))
((NATS))
Hey, I was calling to see if you had any time available? Are you in a hotel? Yeah, send me the address.
((Banner: Two other police officers join Heid to meet the girl))
((NATS))
I’ll stay on the phone with you, but I’m going to walk in.
((Banner: Officers discover a 15- year-old girl being sex trafficked by a woman she said was her sister))
((CORPORAL CHRIS HEID, MARYLAND STATE POLICE))
Now we, in this case with a juvenile, we would deal with our local social services. So, she’ll need to be placed tonight in some sort of, you know, foster care facility or somewhere secure because she’s a juvenile. So, we’ll have to call them out to make arrangements for that.
((Banner: The girl will be returned to her grandparents in California))
((CORPORAL CHRIS HEID, MARYLAND STATE POLICE))
I mean, the recovery I guess is more than anything just trying to help someone, and get them the help they need. I think that’s the biggest part. Just our success, in my opinion, isn’t measured by the amount of pimps we arrest, or ‘johns’ we arrest. It’s the lives that we help. And if we can get a girl to quit doing that and get her life back together, that’s what makes it worthwhile for us.
((NATS))
((Banner: Federal authorities shut down backpage.com in April 2018))
((CORPORAL CHRIS HEID, MARYLAND STATE POLICE))
Since Backpage got shut down, we’ve, kind of, hit a little bit of a roadblock. For a period of a few days there at least we were, kind of, like trying to figure out where all the postings went, so where all our potential victims went. We were able to come up with a few different websites that the girls have relocated to. The main problem is right now we don’t have one central location. So, when we had Backpage, or had access to Backpage, every girl in Maryland was pretty much posting on Backpage. So, it made it a lot easier for us to go to one central website. Our fear is that the minors may end up out on the streets at this point. If the girls do end up going to the street, that there also could be an increase in, you know, drug abuse.
