The FBI teamed with local law enforcement officers across Colorado and Wyoming at the close of last week to rescue nine children from the throes of sex trafficking and arrest 11 pimps and 32 customers of prostitution, authorities said Tuesday.
The initiative, from Thursday through Saturday, was an intensive effort that spanned hotels, truck stops, street corners and social media applications. The youngest recovered victim was 14 years old.
The efforts were spearheaded by the FBI’s Rocky Mountain Innocence Lost Task Force and part of Cross Country Operation X, which has become a semi-annual national effort to target child sex trafficking. In Colorado, authorities say this year they focused on the problem’s growing spread in the state through social media sites and services such as Facebook, Grindr and MeetMe.
“We’re in a technological age now where we have powerful computing devices that we can hold in the palm of our hand,” said Sgt. Dan Steele, of the Denver Police Department, who supervises the Innocence Lost Task Force. “Because of that, we have now seen traffickers and sex buyers alike looking at those devices and going, ‘Wow, I can sit on my couch or I can sit in my car or I can stand on the street corner and I can pick and choose a person that I want to exploit. I can pick and choose if I want to buy someone, sell someone, exploit someone.’
“That’s a disturbing trend to know that that’s out there.”
In one case as part of the operation, authorities arrested two pimps from Indiana who were caught in Denver driving a 17-year-old girl and a 20-year-old woman across the Midwest, selling them for sex along the way, according to court records and the FBI. When the group arrived in Denver, the teen and woman were advertised for prostitution on a sex website, which led investigators to act.
Authorities identified the men as Dawayne Parker Manuel, 18, and Kenneth Bacon, 22, who each face an accusation of human trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
“These young girls were giving every penny that they earned to the pimps,” Calvin Shivers, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver division, said at the news conference.
In Mesa County, investigators reported arresting six men — including two registered sex offenders — on a wide variety of charges that included child sex assault, Internet luring, patronizing a child prostitute and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
The FBI says it also recovered 47 adult prostitutes in the region.
Cross Country Operation — launched in 2003 — this year spanned 106 cities nationwide and led to the recovery of 82 children from sex trafficking and the arrest of 239 pimps. Investigators also tracked leads as far away as Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand and Canada.
The Rocky Mountain Innocence Lost Task Force ranked second this year in the number of children recovered by a regional task force as part of the operation. In 2014 and 2015, the Colorado-Wyoming group was first in child recoveries.
Authorities believe there could be as many as 2,000 children in Colorado and Wyoming who are exploited each year.
“This is a problem,” said Ted Mink, deputy director of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and Jefferson County’s former sheriff. “This is a huge problem. Colorado takes this very seriously.”
18th Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler lauded law enforcement’s efforts in Colorado but said more needs to be done to protect sex trafficking victims. He said Colorado laws don’t make sex trafficking a prison-mandated offense and that sex buyers — sometimes called johns — should face some sort of shaming for their actions.
“We’ve got to stem the tide of this,” Brauchler said.
Pete Weir, district attorney in Jefferson County, said sex traffickers “have no conscience” and are “dedicated to the sexual exploitation of our kids.” His office, which has a specialized human trafficking unit, has been one of the leaders in Colorado when it comes to prosecuting sex trafficking cases.
“In confronting the scourge of human trafficking, it starts with education and information,” Weir said. “Sometimes it’s hard for people to believe that this kind of activity takes place in our community. It takes place in Jefferson County, Arapahoe County, Douglas County, Denver (and) throughout Colorado.”
