There are a million threads discussing how mongers can avoid LE (for instance, by checking TER reviews). And there are threads on what to do if monger is busted (shut up, and if you do talk, don't lie). But I'm wondering if any of the mongers here have actual experience getting busted?
I'm also specifically wondering how the DHS/FBI-facilitated stings work. I assumed LE would place fake ads or hijacks real ads to lure mongers to hotel rooms. But if that's the case, it would primarily be the johns getting arrested. Yet, when I read about the "human trafficking" stings facilitated by the FBI or DHS, they always arrest many providers too. (Which shows that the stings aren't really about human trafficking -- if the providers are victims, why would they be arrested?) I want to know how these work to avoid them.
Other scenarios I've heard about are cops showing up at the room because the hotel or a neighbor complained. And raids of AMPs. But when I hear about these, it's always second or third-hand. I'd love to hear from someone it's actually happened to.
An arrest in-and-of-itself isn't what scares me. (It's a misdemeanor fine with no jail time, right? Like a glorified traffic ticket.) But the ramifications it would have for other aspects of y life would be devastating.
That's because we are in the know about how to avoid same.
The cases you mostly see in the news are guys who call any old number or answer any email and end up busted at a one star motel by cops looking in from the next room, or guys propositioning decoys on the streets.
One thing to note is that soliciting is becoming a felony in many areas, Chicago notably. This is to prevent guys from opting for trials and wearing down the system with case overload. The idea is that you'll plea bargain to a misdemeanors before facing trial on a felony. Probably pretty effective, I would guess.
It is now a Felony in Texas, even for 1st time offenders!
I was 20 years old in College. I had been to Massage Parlors a few times in Chicago, and for the most part did not have Enough money to afford. So naturally just viewing ladies who were way out of my league was Fantasy enough. My friend let me borrow his car and I had a few minutes to spare in the neighborhood, so I thought “What the hell, why not check these ladies out”.
I walk in on a sting and 2 of Chicago’s Finest say “Hey welcome…come on in….we are having a party”! They both flash their badges, and ask me what I am doing here? I am scared to death and just mumble I just wanted to check this out. Bad Cop says “Oh yeah, how much $$$ are you carrying?” Keep in mind the door fee was $25, I had $17 to my name…Good Cop says “ Not enough to even make it past the entrance”! He was laughing….He also asked one of the Pretty attendants if she knew me? Angel replied I never have seen him before! Bad Cop demands to see my ID. This was way ahead of Photo IDs…I had been cited for speeding a few weeks before, and in Illinois you surrendered your DL, and your citation served as your temporary DL. Anyways Bad Cop writes my information down on a 3X5” Index Card and warns me “if I ever show up again in a MP, I would be going to Jail. You are free to leave!” As I exited I breathed a sigh of relief.
P411 and TER appear to be the best rescources as Legal Entanglement Insurance. Most of the providers on USA Sexguide have issues and for the most part cater to the bottom feeders, and I pretty much stay away from that! Here again though, occasionally you find a Diamond in the rough. In those cases you really need to sharpen your senses, and if Red Flags arise, do not ignore them!
One time I walked into a sting operation. I never made it into the room. Was questioned outside the front door of the hotel for about an hour and released after saying nothing. The escort inside was arrested according to LE plan. They let me go after they took her away.
In the second situation the escort had extended her hotel stay without paying for the extra day for the room. Mgt knocked on the door during my hour. About 15 min later they unlocked the door and came in...due to things the escort had said thru the door. I was held in the hotel lobby for questioning and said nothing. After over an hour police came down with the girl and walked us both out the front door.
In both cases my cellphone was taken from me without my permission, and given back as I was released. This was back before cellphones were "locked" The second time was in downtown Boston and cost me a $40 parking ticket as my meter had run out.
-- Modified on 4/1/2022 10:05:00 PM
In your first example, do you know how the sting was conducted? Did the cops see her ad and show up at the hotel waiting for each john? Or had hotel management ratted her out?
This affluent suburb gets Federal money to fight Human Trafficking. I remember the town offered a 3 day workshop on Human Trafficking which police were paid to attend, local hotel staff and concerned citizens were invited for free, with plenty of snacks and free lunches each day. I was temped to attend as a concerned citizen, but did not have time available to go.
The sting took down a local high volume agency. The hotel probably saw guys coming in every hour, on the hour. I remember the girls talking about this issue and I would always exit down the stairs and out the end of the hallway door, to avoid the lobby on the way out.
Reading everyday crime stories in the paper, 90% of the perps are locking themselves up with their mouths, thinking that they can outsmart the cops with some fancy footwork. It never works. They are pros and know how to trip you up.
The only thing they can't deal with is when you clam up. The courts have ruled that the only thing you owe LE is your name and address, and proof of same, otherwise you can be held until LE can verify those two items.
When LE realizes that they aren't going to get anywhere with you, they'll toss you back into the pond and use their time more wisely going after the other fish.
Cops will often give you the reverse impression. They'll give you the impression that if you're cool and honest, you might get off. But if you're a jerk by not answering their simple questions, they'll be more likely to jam you up. It's a ploy obviously, but I could see how some guys fall for that. Especially if you think the cops already have enough evidence against you.
-- Modified on 4/2/2022 10:17:36 AM
An arrest in-and-of-itself isn't what scares me. (It's a misdemeanor fine with no jail time, right? Like a glorified traffic ticket.)
There are some old Cop shows and documentaries. Sometimes, the ride along camera crew would document a prostitution sting. I am combining different recollections for dramatic effect, but (1) schlemiel shows up at cheap motel (2) knocks on door (3) F voice within says, "Come in!" (4) schlemiel enters room and withing 2 seconds 800 pounds of cops pounce on the guy and force him to the floor while they are shouting "Show me your hands! Show me your hands!"
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Here's a video (more tame than my version): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_5s8FSeS6w
Here's a takedown (skip to 19:00): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DtuwC44Mmk
There are a million threads discussing how mongers can avoid LE (for instance, by checking TER reviews). And there are threads on what to do if monger is busted (shut up, and if you do talk, don't lie). But I'm wondering if any of the mongers here have actual experience getting busted?
I'm also specifically wondering how the DHS/FBI-facilitated stings work. I assumed LE would place fake ads or hijacks real ads to lure mongers to hotel rooms. But if that's the case, it would primarily be the johns getting arrested. Yet, when I read about the "human trafficking" stings facilitated by the FBI or DHS, they always arrest many providers too. (Which shows that the stings aren't really about human trafficking -- if the providers are victims, why would they be arrested?) I want to know how these work to avoid them.
Other scenarios I've heard about are cops showing up at the room because the hotel or a neighbor complained. And raids of AMPs. But when I hear about these, it's always second or third-hand. I'd love to hear from someone it's actually happened to.
An arrest in-and-of-itself isn't what scares me. (It's a misdemeanor fine with no jail time, right? Like a glorified traffic ticket.) But the ramifications it would have for other aspects of y life would be devastating.
I had a provider, tell me one time the cops knocked on her hotel room door, and arrested both her and the guy in her room, I always wonder, as I am walking to her room, if the hotel staff is watch, and if they are, are they instructed to call the cops, if the see any suspicious activities happening, if a provider have multiple guys coming and going, that’s a red flag, I do notice from time to time, as I am leaving a provider room I get those looks, and I be wondering if the hotel staff knows or the people on the same floor, that saw me coming and going knows. With all the cameras around I’m pretty sure we being watched, but as long as no cops are knocking on the provider room, I’m okay with the hotel staff knowing!
There are no guarantees of complete safety, but:
It depends a lot on the jurisdiction. Even within the DC area, different counties and the District itself have significantly different levels of enforcement.
Independents are safter than agencies (fewer people know), and discreet ladies who aren't to explicit in their ads are safer too. Most hotels don't care as long as nobody makes a scene or comes in dressed like a slob or a stereotypical hooker. A higher class hotel is better. If you act like a Backpage refugee, you will attract more attention. Business hotels make a fair amount of their money off of cheaters and escorts/clients. As long as Joe, Mary, and the kids on vacation from Cleveland aren't likely to complain, they won't complain either.
You generally have to be looking or finding for underage or trafficked women to attracts the interest of DHS or the FBI. If you both are consenting adults and no force or undocumented immigration is involved, and you are looking for the same, they generally don't get involved.
UTR, particularly if you are on a real name basis, may be hard to find, but it is the safest. You can just claim that you are having an affair. If neither of you is married and you are both of legal age, it isn't a crime anywhere in the US. If one of you is married, adultery is a crime in 17 states but it is rarely enforced.
I do know of one lady (over about three decades) who was arrested but never charged in spite of checking all of these boxes except UTR in a good way, at least when I met her. She was arrested several years prior and maybe she behaved differently then. Even though they let her go without charging her, the record of the arrest was enough to cost her a job she was about to be offered as a paralegal a few years later.
You wrote:
"You generally have to be looking or finding for underage or trafficked women to attracts the interest of DHS or the FBI. If you both are consenting adults and no force or undocumented immigration is involved, and you are looking for the same, they generally don't get involved."
That's not true. Yes, the FBI's public relations department *claims* those are the things they're targeting. When they do a sting, they advertised as such, and the media blindly reports it as such. But if you actually look at who is arrested and the charges that are filed, you'll see the Feds are actually targeting independent escorts who are not trafficked and over 18. For example, if a so-called "anti-trafficking" sting results in 70 arrests, you'll likely to find that none of the providers were trafficked and perhaps only two were underage. Think about it: if those providers were truly being trafficked, why would the Feds arrest them? They'd be victims in need of rescue, not criminals in need of punishment.
To be clear, I know that trafficking really does happen and I support LE efforts to stamp it out. All I'm saying is that FBI stings often target independents rather than the truly trafficked.
How do you know that business hotels make a fair amount of their money off of cheaters and escorts/clients? Did you have a conversation with a desk clerk or maybe a finance person at a hotel chain or did you read the paper - "hotels pad their bottom line with escorts". I believe that a more plausible explanation of why hotels don't give a fuck is that they do not want to be in the business of monitoring guests unless they have a real safety concern. I also live in the DC area and based on the number and size of business hotels and the number of visiting hookers and locals I doubt that the hooker cohort contributes much to the bottom line.
I also believe that the risk of being caught in a sting or being busted with a TER reviewed provider is quite low. You probably has a significantly higher risk of being hit by a vehicle crossing the street or being in an accident with a reckless or drunk driver. How many of us think about these risks every time we take a walk or drive a car? And the risk of getting an STD is probably much higher.
If one is highly paranoid about being busted, I think there are options to assuage your concern: 1) get a hotel room and just do outcalls; 2) arrange a dinner date and have dinner before anything is exchanged; 3) just see providers that host in an apartment or house. Again, I am sure that someone can scrounge up an episode where there was bust in these scenarios but it gotta be extremely rare.
My source is not a desk clerk but a regional manager for a US-based international chain. I was talking to him about other things, and I asked him what share of the guests were from abroad, and he said not as many as you would think, maybe 5 percent, 10 percent at most depending on the location of the hotel within the DMV (walking distance to the Mall being the highest, suburbs being the lowest). It is also seasonal of course like everything in his business. I then asked whare share of guests came from the DMV, and he said probably a lot more than you think, about 20 percent (actually that is pretty near what I would have thought). Assuming that his chain is comparable to the others in that range (call it the Hyatt/IGH/Marriott/Sheraton/Hilton range), this doesn't nail down the share of pros and clients. To sketch out the Venn diagram, there are cheaters (or who knows, just people getting their house interiors repainted) who would be local but neither clients or escorts. On the other hand, touring gals pretty much always use hotels, and they aren't local. Also, it presumably only applies to that range rather than the Motel 6/Red Roof Inn range at one end and the Four Seasons/Mandarin Oriental range at the other. That is why I didn't hazard a guess as to a specific share.
How is your friend defining a "local"? Statistical analysis of 1000s of registrations? Using the Zip code used on registration? City, town, or suburb used on registration? "Are you local?" checkbox on registration? ... ? Whether they spoke with a local accent when they checked in ("Hay! Yo!" vs. "Tut, tut, my good man. Can you please direct me to the lift?")
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I don't know the DMV area, but some "local" business people in places like NYC and Boston still have a 1.5 - 2 hour commute each way. On really busy days (late night working; early morning meetings), they would prefer to stay at a hotel near their workplace rather than do the commute. They prefer it even more if they can bill it to the client!
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Maybe they add in some hanky panky, but staying in a hotel on a workday is not that unusual for locals.
He was a guy I met for a few conversations about other issues, not exactly a friend. I didn't want to reveal why I was asking, so I didn't get into census definitions of the DMV. My guess is that he had in mind DC and the Fairfax/Montgomery/PG/Arlington/Alexandria counties and the smaller jurisdictions within those boundaries. For marketing reasons, they pay attention to the the zip codes or countries of origin of the people who check in and they know what they are because you can't check in without a driver's license, passport or something else similar. It wouldn't matter much if you expanded it to Prince William, Manassas, and Frederick because they are small in population relative to the more central areas. The only big difference would be if you included the Baltimore area, but even that wouldn't skew the results that much given the sheer size of the central DMV area relative to the Baltimore area.
The DMV is big (just shy of 10 million on the broader definition), but it isn't the size of NYC. In over 20 years of working within a few blocks of the White House and living more than an hour away, I stayed in town for work reasons overnight exactly twice. Once when the Metro had a 24-hour shutdown. Even that, a friend and I combined with spontaneous hanky panky; the reservation was under my name and for Mr. and Mrs. and they took her car at the valet addressing her as Mrs. XXX - she loved the idea of us being married for 20 hours. The only other time was in a major afternoon snowstorm that wasn't fully predicted hen I had to spend the night alone (sniff).
Anyone who has been busted by Law Enforcement...........Is asking for trouble.
Never in my life nor have I ever got a “funny feeling” about a client. I screen very thoroughly though. I know it can happen to anyone but I’m thankful it hasn’t happened to me — and I show my face on my ads.
Never in my life nor have I ever got a “funny feeling” about a client. I screen very thoroughly though. I know it can happen to anyone but I’m thankful it hasn’t happened to me — and I show my face on my ads.
I am sure that she is very flattered by your eloquent pick up lines.
Knock on wood. However you can spot a potential LEO, FBI, or DHS agent close up by how they dress. The most obvious giveaways are military style haircuts, 5.11 Spandex pants, military style boots or Solomon hiking shoes, and slightly oversized shirts to conceal their gear (firearm, radio, and etc).
I deal a lot with Vice units in various cities. And a lot of those dudes look more like gangbangers (not the porno kind) than cops. Most PDs require UC experience to make it into Vice so these guys know how to play the part and blend in well.
That said unless there is pressure from above they tend to stay away from independent providers. It's one of the big reasons I don't book thru agencies or go to AMP. If I find out a girl has a pimp I'll drop her too.
I was not independent, and was new to the industry. The agency books your calls it was LE. They set up a hotel room, and it is a misdemeanor in SoCAL. I got an attorney, and the case was dismissed because of LE's wrong doings. I screen my own potential clients, and have never been busted, since working for an agency in College over 20 years ago.
I recently got ghosted by a high-end, reputable lady with an outstanding record. We'd exchanged a pleasant and professional series of screening and confirmation emails leading up to the day, then several hours before go time, things went silent. The next day she told me she had been busted while doing an outcall, and blamed it on a rare lapse in thorough screening. Never got to see her, but I believe her.
Lurker316,
It's all about paying attention to your surroundings. And yes providers are as much of a victim as the hobbyist.
Regardless what LE is doing at any time. They will have to prove that there's human trafficing going on. All hobbyists & providers have to do is be aware of their surroundings and stay 1 step ahead of LE.
All they have to prove is prostitution, which is a separate crime. SESTA/FOSTA was created specifically to facilitate human trafficking busts, but laws against prostition existed long before that and still do.
As far as I am concerned........Yes they do. Otherwise the people that are being arrested for human trafficing can take them to court and suite them for false arrest.
I agree with inicky. Human trafficking involves forcing people to do things without compensation. Roughly half of those trafficked are sex workers, the rest are agricultural, domestic, and other industries. An agency can be guilty of trafficking, but a provider would be the trafficked victim, not the criminal. A provider can be charged with prostitution, but not with trafficking. Of course, any charge has to be proven or resolved by a plea.
I don't quite understand why the lady above doesn't get this distinction, which seems pretty clear to you and me.
I get the whole deal with LE. But when it comes to Human Trafficing & Prostitution. The LE does have to prove that the female is prostituting (Unless the obvious signs are there. She indicates sex for money & Etc.). And as far as Human Trafficing goes.......Unless there's distress there (Meaning unless it is obvious that the person that is being trafficing is being forced to deal with the situation, then the LE can't do a damn thing. They may feel/believe that they can, but they can't.
if you google Pot Brothers STFU on youtube . It ill give you invaluable advice on how to act