FBI arrests 150 alleged pimps, rescues 105 kids forced into prostitution

FBI arrests 150: The FBI arrested 150 suspected pimps in a three-day, 76-city sweep that also rescued 105 child prostitutes, the FBI announced Monday.?

By Pete Yost,?Associated Press / July 29, 2013

Ron Hosko, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, speaks to reporters about "Operation Cross Country" at FBI headquarters in Washington, July 29. The FBI says the operation rescued 105 children who were forced into prostitution in the United States and arrested 150 people it described as pimps. From left: John Ryan, CEO of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Drew Oosterbaan, chief of the DOJ Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, and Hosko.

Evan Vucci/AP

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The FBI said Monday that authorities arrested 150 alleged pimps and rescued 105 young people in a three-day sweep in 76 cities. FBI officials called child?prostitution a "persistent threat" in America.

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The agency said it had been monitoring Backpage.com and other websites as a prominent online marketplace for sex for sale. Backpage.com said that it was "very, very pleased" by the raids and that if the website were shut down to the advertisements, the ads would be pushed to sites that wouldn't cooperate with law enforcement.

The young people in the roundup, almost all of them girls, ranged in age from 13 to 17.

The largest numbers of children rescued in the weekend initiative, Operation Cross Country, were in San Francisco, Detroit, Milwaukee, Denver and New Orleans. The operation was conducted under the FBI's decade-long Innocence Lost National Initiative. The latest rescues and arrests were the largest such enforcement action to date.

"Child prostitution remains a persistent threat to children across the country," Ron Hosko, assistant director of the bureau's criminal investigative division, told a news conference. "We're trying to put this spotlight on pimps and those who would exploit."

In Operation Cross Country, federal, state and local authorities cooperated in an intelligence effort aimed at identifying pimps and their young victims.

The FBI said the campaign has resulted in rescuing 2,700 children since 2003. The investigations and convictions of 1,350 individuals have led to life imprisonment for 10 pimps and the seizure of more than $3.1 million in assets.

In their efforts to identify child victims, investigators seek help wherever they can find it ? in some cases from adult prostitutes, Hosko said. He said almost all the victims in sweeps like the one over the weekend are girls and that the profiles of the victims cut across racial lines and boundaries of wealth.

Social media are a common denominator in many of the rescues.

Last year, five members of the Underground Gangster Crips contacted teens at school or through Facebook, DateHookUp.com or other online social networking sites, enticing the girls to use their looks to earn money through prostitution.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/fGMpF9HnNjY/FBI-arrests-150-alleged-pimps-rescues-105-kids-forced-into-prostitution

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