Undercover cop arrests 6 involved in sex solicitation/trafficking - In Salt Lake City

SALT LAKE CITY — Several people are facing criminal charges after undercover police officers caught them involved in a sex trafficking operation during a prostitution sting Thursday night.

The sting operation took place on 1500 S. State Street and within a few hours of an undercover police officer posing as a prostitute, six people were arrested for trying to solicit sex.

Salt Lake City Police officers said that the sex trafficking often occurs in broad daylight and it's a crime that they are trying to eliminate.

"We do make arrests regularly for people coming down to pick up prostitutes," Sgt. Shawn Josephson said.

Nearly once a week, the Organized Crime Unit conducts sting operations in Salt Lake City to find individuals soliciting sex.

"Sometimes it takes an undercover operation to actually see how rampant this crime is and how prevalent it is in the city," Josephson said.

The five men and one woman arrested Thursday ranged in age from 27 to 50. Two of them were also arrested for investigation of possessing drugs and drug paraphernalia. One man was previously convicted of sexual solicitation in 2011, another was convicted of drug-related charges in 2012 and 2007. One of the men was convicted of assault causing serious bodily harm and domestic violence in 2010.

Police said that prostitution and drug distribution often go "hand in hand" and that individuals involved in either activity will face jail time.

If you come downtown to come pick up a prostitute, there is a good likelihood that you're going to jail.

–Sgt. Shawn Josephson

"If you come downtown to come pick up a prostitute, there is a good likelihood that you're going to jail and that you are going to have to explain why you're in jail and why your car was impounded," Josephson said.

The vice squad previously responsible for enforcing the arrests of prostitution crimes was disbanded in 2012 due to allegations of misconduct. The number of prostitution arrests decreased after vice was disbanded, but since the Organized Crime Unit has begun patrolling for sex trafficking, police expect the numbers of arrests to increase.

The statistics on prostitution in Salt Lake City have been requested from the police department, and will be released Friday afternoon.

Contributing: Pat Reavy

Sex Trafficking in Utah Massage Parlors

Massage parlor owner to stand trial in sex trafficking case

By Dennis Romboy and Ashley Kewish

SALT LAKE CITY — A massage parlor owner will stand trial for his role in an alleged sex trafficking ring in which young girls were forced into prostitution.

During a preliminary hearing in 3rd District Court this week, prosecutors presented evidence that Luis Daniel Arano-Hernandez coerced a 17-year-old girl and her mother to be prostituted at two Reiki massage parlors.

Arano-Hernandez, 29, threatened the girl with physical harm and deportation, according to prosecutors. She testified that he arranged for and required her to obtain false ID cards to show she was 18. She also testified that he told her to not contact police after a customer raped her at his business.

Arano-Hernandez is charged with three counts of aggravated human trafficking, a first-degree felony; pattern of unlawful activity and exploitation of prostitution, first-degree felonies; two counts of aggravated exploitation of prostitution, a second-degree felony; two counts of exploitation of prostitution, a second-degree felony; two counts of identity fraud, a second-degree felony; and one third-degree felony count of identity fraud.

Agents for the Utah Attorney General’s Office SECURE Strike Force arrested Arano-Hernandez and four other men last November after an eight-month investigation into sex trafficking at massage parlors in Salt Lake City, South Salt Lake and Millcreek. Arano-Hernandez's arrest was caught on video.

The recording, obtained by KSL News, shows Strike Force agents waiting outside Arano-Hernandez's massage parlor. Just a few miles away, another raid was going on at a second location believed to be location in similar crimes

"(Agents) entered both buildings simultaneously so that they were protected and the victims were protected," said Utah Assistant Attorney General Gregory Ferbrache.

The four others involved entered into cooperation agreements against Arano-Hernandez and were sentenced according to those agreements, the attorney general's office said.

Authorities say the men are in the U.S. illegally.

Utah gets D grade for Child Sex Trafficking

Sex trafficking is not a crime most people think about or realize still happens in this country and our own state. But a report released in the fall shows America's legal system is failing children who are sexually exploited for money, and that includes Utah's system.

Shared Hope International gave Utah a "D" grade, saying our state does not do enough to protect victims and adequately punish perpetrators. Nationally, victims are defined as under age 18 and not able to consent. In Utah, victims are considered under age 14.

And Utah laws do not add special penalties when perpetrators pay to have sex with children or view pornography. A bill before the legislature, HB163 would strengthen Utah's sex trafficking laws.

Richard Piatt discussed the issue with Stephanie Larsen, an advocate for victims. Four generations of women in her family were victims of sex trafficking. High school student Madi Palmer also joined the discussion. She is a volunteer with with Backyard Broadcast, a youth organization that seeks to end child sex-trafficking.

To Watch The Video

The Day My God Died

The Day My God Died is a feature-length documentary that presents the stories of young girls whose lives have been shattered by the child sex trade. They describe the day they were abducted from their village and sold into sexual servitude as, The Day My God Died.

The film provides actual footage from the brothels of Bombay, known even to tourists as “The Cages,” captured with “spy camera” technology. It weaves the stories of girls, and their stolen hopes and dreams, into an unforgettable examination of the growing plague of child sex slavery.

Through the film we come to know victims such as Gina, sold into sex slavery at age 7 and beaten with sticks and aluminum rods. Anita, lured by a friend then drugged and sold at age 12, was beaten and threatened that she would be buried alive. Girls are gang-raped, beaten and forced to service up to 20 clients a day as they are held in perpetual sexual servitude.

The film also introduces us to the heroes of the movement to abolish child sex slavery – non-profit organizations which rescue and care for former sex slaves. Some victims have emerged to form their own underground railway out of slavery. Maili, trafficked at 19 along with her infant daughter, risks her life to help other girls. We see Jyoti, sold at age12, lead a raid on a brothel resulting in the rescue of seven girls and the arrest of two brothel owners.

Children are the commodity consumed by the voracious and sophisticated international sex trade. Recruiters capture them, smugglers transport them, brothel owners enslave them, corrupt police betray them and customers rape and infect them. Every person in the chain profits except for the girls, who pay the price with their lives. Sexual servitude is a virtual death sentence. During the making of the film, in Bombay alone, 90 new cases of HIV are reported every hour and the girls suffer up to an 80% HIV/AIDS infection rate.

Argentine Mom Rescues Hundreds of Sex Slaves

President Cristina Fernandez, right, applauds as Susana Trimarco, left, lifts a human rights prize given by the president during a rally to mark the 29th anniversary of the return to democracy in Argentina, on the eve of the Human Rights Day, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Dec. 9, 2012. Trimarco is known for her crusade to fin d her daughter, Maria de los Angeles "Marita" Veron, who disappeared in 2002, and who is believed to had been kidnapped by human traffickers. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

http://news.yahoo.com/argentine-mom-rescues-hundreds-sex-slaves-221110530.html

Susana Trimarco was a housewife who fussed over her family and paid scant attention to the news until her daughter left for a doctor's appointment and never came back.

After getting little help from police, Trimarco launched her own investigation into a tip that the 23-year-old was abducted and forced into sex slavery. Soon, Trimarco was visiting brothels seeking clues about her daughter and the search took an additional goal: rescuing sex slaves and helping them start new lives.

What began as a one-woman campaign a decade ago developed into a movement and Trimarco today is a hero to hundreds of women she's rescued from Argentine prostitution rings. She's been honored with the "Women of Courage" award by the U.S. State Department and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on Nov. 28. Sunday night, President Cristina Fernandez gave her a human rights award before hundreds of thousands of people in the Plaza de Mayo.

But years of exploring the decadent criminal underground haven't led Trimarco to her daughter, Maria de los Angeles "Marita" Veron, who was 23 in 2002 when she disappeared from their hometown in provincial Tucuman, leaving behind her own 3-year-old daughter Micaela.

"I live for this," the 58-year-old Trimarco told The Associated Press of her ongoing quest. "I have no other life, and the truth is, it is a very sad, very grim life that I wouldn't wish on anyone."

Her painful journey has now reached a milestone.

Publicity over Trimarco's efforts prompted Argentine authorities to make a high-profile example of her daughter's case by putting 13 people on trial for allegedly kidnapping Veron and holding her as a sex slave in a family-run operation of illegal brothels. Prostitution is not illegal in Argentina, but the exploitation of women for sex is.

A verdict is expected Tuesday after a nearly yearlong trial.

The seven men and six women have pleaded innocent and their lawyers have said there's no physical proof supporting the charges against them. The alleged ringleaders denied knowing Veron and said that women who work in their brothels do so willingly. Prosecutors have asked for up to 25 years imprisonment for those convicted.

Trimarco was the primary witness during the trial, testifying for six straight days about her search for her daughter.

The road to trial was a long one.

Frustrated by seeming indifference to her daughter's disappearance, Trimarco began her own probe and found a taxi driver who told of delivering Veron to a brothel where she was beaten and forced into prostitution. The driver is among the defendants.

With her husband and granddaughter in tow, Trimarco disguised herself as a recruiter of prostitutes and entered brothel after brothel searching for clues. She soon found herself immersed in the dangerous and grim world of organized crime, gathering evidence against police, politicians and gangsters.

"For the first time, I really understood what was happening to my daughter," she said. "I was with my husband and with Micaela, asleep in the backseat of the car because she was still very small and I had no one to leave her with."

The very first woman Trimarco rescued taught her to be strong, she said.

"It stuck with me forever: She told me not to let them see me cry, because these shameless people who had my daughter would laugh at me, and at my pain," Trimarco said. "Since then I don't cry anymore. I've made myself strong, and when I feel that a tear might drop, I remember these words and I keep my composure."

Micaela, now 13, has been by her grandmother's side throughout, contributing to publicity campaigns against human trafficking and keeping her mother's memory alive.

More than 150 witnesses testified in the trial, including a dozen former sex slaves who described brutal conditions in the brothels.

Veron may have been kidnapped twice, with the complicity of the very authorities who should have protected her, according to Julio Fernandez, who now runs a Tucuman police department devoted to investigating human trafficking. He testified that witnesses reported seeing Veron at a bus station three days after she initially disappeared, and that a police officer from La Rioja, Domingo Pascual Andrada, delivered her to a brothel there. Andrada, now among the defendants, denied knowing any of the other defendants, let alone Veron.

Other Tucuman police testified that when they sought permission in 2002 to search La Rioja brothels, a judge made them wait for hours, enabling Veron's captors to move her. That version was supported by a woman who had been a prostitute at the brothel: She testified that Veron was moved just before police arrived. The judge, Daniel Moreno, is not on trial. He denied delaying the raid or having anything to do with the defendants.

Some of the former prostitutes said they had seen Veron drugged and haggard. One testified Veron felt trapped and missed her daughter. Another said she spotted Veron with dyed-blonde hair and an infant boy she was forced to conceive in a rape by a ringleader. A third thought Veron had been sold to a brothel in Spain — a lead reported to Interpol.

Trimarco's campaign to find her daughter led the State Department to provide seed money for a foundation in Veron's name. To date, it has rescued more than 900 women and girls from sex trafficking. The foundation also provides housing, medical and psychological aid, and it helps victims sue former captors.

Argentina outlawed human trafficking in 2008, thanks in large part to the foundation's work. A new force dedicated to combating human trafficking has liberated nearly 3,000 more victims in two years, said Security Minister Nilda Garre, who wrote a newspaper commentary saying the trial's verdict should set an example.

Whatever the verdict, Trimarco's lawyer, Carlos Garmendia, says the case has already made a difference.

"Human trafficking was an invisible problem until the Marita (Veron) case," Garmendia said. "The case has put it on the national agenda."

But Trimarco wants more. "I had hoped they would break down and say what they'd done with Marita," she said.

"I feel here in my breast that she is alive and I'm not going to stop until I find her," Trimarco said. "If she's no longer in this world, I want her body."

Some Good News in the Fight against Child Predators

Salt Lake City FBI agent changes how child sex crimes are investigated

BY CIMARON NEUGEBAUER THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

PUBLISHED AUGUST 27, 2012 9:06 AM

A Colorado man last year kidnapped young children from their parents in the middle of the night and took them to a hotel. He sexually abused them, took pictures and videos of the acts and shared them online with another sex offender in Ontario, Canada.

Like a puppeteer, the Canadian offender instructed the man in Colorado what to do with the children.

The good news: Together, the Colorado Springs Police Department and the Toronto Police Service were able to solve the case and stop the abuse in a matter of months thanks to new technology created by an FBI special agent in Salt Lake City.

Since the software was approved by the FBI last fall, it has helped save at least 45 children and led to 330 searches and more than 220 arrests, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. In May, the center gave FBI Special Agent Eric Zimmerman an award for his contributions in fighting child sex crimes.

After being tasked by the Utah Attorney General's office to create a basic triage tool, Zimmerman instead devised something much more advanced. During the past two years, he created 13 software tools that have changed the way child sex crimes are being investigated worldwide. Those search tools have been used by the Utah Attorney General Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force since 2010. Utah ICAC commander Jessica Farnsworth said Zimmerman's programs have cut in half the time needed to investigate the data on a computer hard drive.

"Eric has done more good for children nationwide than any other person. That is my personal belief," Farnsworth said.

The software has saved ICAC task forces thousands of dollars, Farnsworth said, because the program is offered to law enforcement agencies for free. Utah ICAC has been using Zimmerman's programs on every case since 2010, including that of the former University of Utah professor accused of viewing child porn on an airline flight to Boston.

"All the [61 national ICAC] commanders are talking about Eric's products," she said. "That is amazing that one man in his very short time here has built that kind of relationship and reputation with them."

Zimmerman's 13 software tools are being used by state, local, and federal authorities in the U.S. and 41 countries to help catch online sexual predators more quickly.

"I can honestly say it is one of the best tools that I have ever used since doing this line of work," said Toronto Police Service Detective Paul Krawczyk, who has worked in the child exploitation section of his agency for 10 years.

—

Searching a computer's guts • Zimmerman declined to discuss in detail how the tools work because they are used in active law enforcement investigations. Generally, the programs run on a thumb drive that searches deep inside the computer or interacts with a remote computer and searches it for evidence like an officer would at a physical crime scene.

In the past, agents would enter a home and seize all the computers then have to wait several months while a technician went through the laundry list of data on a room full of computers from other cases first, Zimmerman said.

His technology means investigators don't have to seize all electronics. "Our whole goal is to be minimally intrusive in everything we do," Zimmerman said.

The software has a forensic program that interprets evidence left in chat rooms and records of programs used by suspects. It boils down the computer gibberish to something an officer without a computer science degree can understand. The program alerts officers to what is found in real time.

Now, email alerts notify agents when a suspect is online. Before Zimmerman's software, investigators had to monitor chat rooms by logging in and waiting until the suspect logged in, too.

All leads, warrants and arrest information are compiled in the same system and are contributed and accessible by the 41 countries with contacts to each agency. Previously, FBI agents would organize evidence by placing all their information on a particular case into an inhouse spreadsheet.

"There was no way for you to find out [what agency] was involved in what," he said. "Now we can more effectively patrol our own back yards."

A search warrant — or consent of the suspect — is required to use the tools on an electronic device.

Utah ICAC shared the search programs with other task forces in the U.S. as they came into use in 2010.

"It is nice to see the tools make an organization more effective with limited resources," Zimmerman said.

In November 2011, the FBI officially validated the tools for use throughout its agency. They are now used as a standard when investigating child pornography crimes.

Zimmerman didn't take the traditional law enforcement route to the FBI. He earned a computer science degree at Roosevelt University in Chicago and had nine years of computer experience in the private sector before becoming a special agent for the FBI in Salt Lake City about five years ago. Krawczyk said Zimmerman's software automates so many things and saves so much time that they can investigate more cases and save more children.

"In the past, it would take weeks if not months to pull out this data," Zimmerman said. "I've known some investigators who save 10 to 15 hours a week with this."

In the Colorado case, a Colorado Springs man was arrested after a child porn investigation by the Colorado Springs ICAC and Homeland Security. During the investigation, agents discovered both men had several other child victims in both areas.

"It has helped us find someone quite far away and allowed use to help rescue children here as well," Krawczyk said.

While the technology is used mostly for child pornography cases, Zimmerman said it could be expanded in the future to investigate computer network hacking or financial fraud. —

Want this technology in your town?

O Law enforcement agencies interested in FBI Special Agent Eric Zimmerman's technology may contact the Utah Attorney General's Office Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force at 801-281-1211 or by email at utahicac@utah.gov.

Funding Drops for Internet Crimes Against Children

Internet Crimes Against Children task force's funding drops as caseload grows larger

By Geoff Liesik , Deseret News

Published: Thursday, Feb. 25 2010 12:45 a.m. MST

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, members of the ICAC task force and legislators speak in a press conference Tuesday concerning rising trends in child pornography. (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

SALT LAKE CITY — Even though bad guys know the law is actively looking for them, members of the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force are staying busy.

"Everybody knows that our officers are online. Everybody knows we're looking to catch child pornographers," Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said. "And yet the numbers just aren't going down. That is a message of alarm to parents."

At a news conference Wednesday, Shurtleff touted the record-setting performance of task-force agents and prosecutors. In 2009, the multi-agency group based out of the attorney general's office recorded 130 arrests, up from 108 in 2008 and 77 in 2007.

"The nearly 70 percent increase in arrests represents a very real gain in the number of children being protected," said Capt. Jessica Farnsworth, the newly named task-force commander.

Capt. Jessica Farnsworth (Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News)

"Those who have been charged with child pornography are often involved with the actual physical sexual exploitation of the child victims, and many admit to victimizing multiple children," she said.

The increase in arrests comes as state and federal dollars that support the task force are in decline.

"We're only able to investigate a small percentage of the cases that we're getting because we don't have the manpower," Farnsworth said.

She said she and her agents spent countless overtime hours in January searching online for child pornographers and people seeking to rendezvous with minors for sex. The time spent in what she called "the cyber sewer" resulted in 16 arrests in a sweep last month dubbed Operation Frostbite.

Farnsworth said agents rescued several children during the operation and were able to get help for them.

"One child sent a text message to the agent thanking him for arresting the offender," she said. "The abuse stopped for them, but there's more work that needs to be done. There's still more children out there that continue to be abused."

Shurtleff took the opportunity to praise state legislators for giving officers the tools and financial support they've needed over the years to track down those who use the Internet to prey on children.

"We couldn't do this without those tools, without, not only the personnel, but tougher laws, the ability to house and keep these people locked up," he said.

Shurtleff's news conference came one day after a House committee approved a bill that would expand his office's power to issue a subpoena for electronic records.

In 2009, then-Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed a bill that gave the attorney general the ability to subpoena electronic records without judicial approval only in child sex cases. But under HB150, which is being sponsored this legislative session by Rep. Brad Daw, R-Orem, the attorney general's office could subpoena electronic records for felony investigations and the crimes of electronic stalking and electronic harassment without oversight from a judge.

"It's the difference between having to wait five weeks if we go through the federal system, which is all we're left with, compared with two days if we have the ability to do it ourselves," Shurtleff told the Deseret News when asked about Daw's bill.

"The Legislature has understood that we're not going after content or communications, nothing that's protected by the Fourth Amendment, that's when you need a warrant," he said. "We only want the person's name who has that e-mail address or cell-phone number so we can immediately get back to them and find out if they sent (an electronic communication) or not."

Shurtleff said passage of the new bill would give investigators the chance to "jump on a case."

"This isn't Patriot Act stuff. This is just the name, stuff we're already doing when it comes to service providers with desktop computers," he said. "It's a brave new world with smartphones, and the bad guys are obviously using them."

To read the bill, go to le.utah.gov/~2010/htmdoc/hbillhtm/HB0150.htm.

e-mail: gliesik@desnews.com

TWITTER: GeoffLiesik

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