Undercover agents and investigators posed as minors or sex buyers and chatted on several social media sites with people during the sting from Thursday to Monday. When people arrived at an arranged meeting place, they were arrested.
Law enforcement also found 28 people, including one juvenile, who were being trafficked. Several nonprofit organizations provided services to them, according to the BCA-led Human Trafficking Investigators Task Force.
“While the eyes of the basketball world were focused on the court at U.S. Bank Stadium, some were attempting to hide in the shadows of our great community, trafficking and exploiting women and girls, inflicting unimaginable physical and emotional harm, and profiting from pain,” St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell said in a statement. “I’m proud to be part of a law enforcement community that wouldn’t stand for it.”
The men’s Final Four games were played in Minneapolis on Saturday and Monday. Law enforcement also conducted similar sex trafficking stings when the Super Bowl was at U.S. Bank Stadium last year.
For this operation, suspects were booked into the Ramsey, Anoka or Hennepin county jails and their cases will be submitted for felony charging consideration. The suspects were mostly from the greater Twin Cities area.
Police arrested 47 people on suspicion of solicitation of a minor or solicitation of someone under age 16. Eleven people were also booked into jail on probable cause sex trafficking, promotion of prostitution.
Source Article from https://www.inforum.com/news/crime-and-courts/1003102-Final-Four-sex-trafficking-sting-snares-58
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