This Summer An Underage Girl Went Missing in San Mateo County.
We Found Her.
She was in high school when a man lured her away.
He told her she was pretty, he loved her, he would buy her nice things…..
Girls who go missing are, more often than not, kidnapped for commercial sexual exploitation.
Special Operations works closely with the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office, who immediately began looking for her online. Working with investigators and criminal intelligence providers, they used facial recognition software to compare a photo of her with photos of girls being sold for sex on Backpage.com.
The team was able to determine with 93% certainty that the original photo was the same girl being sold for sex on Backpage.The phone number associated with the Backpage ads led to 4 individuals who may have been associated with her sexual exploitation. At least one of the men is considered violent with a criminal history of homicide. By tracking the geographical location of these ads, the team discovered that within one month, she had been sold for sex in the North Bay, San Francisco, Palm Springs and Orange County.
Based on the information from this investigation, law enforcement authorities in Orange County set up a sting operation. The sting operation resulted in the human trafficking arrest of 2 men from the East Bay on August 9, 2017. They are being held without bail in Orange County Jail on human trafficking charges.
This operation involved 14 people and cost approximately $22,000.
Sex trafficking of children in the Bay Area is a problem money can solve.