Sex trafficking is the crime of using force, fraud, or coercion to induce another individual to sell sex. Examples of sex trafficking include illicit massage parlors, strip clubs, escort services, prostitution, and the porn industry.
As a famous rapper once said, "Pimping ain't dead; it just moved to the website." Unfortunately, this statement holds true. Escort ads are created daily, advertising sexual services in exchange for money. Many women in these ads go by nicknames or pseudonyms and are scantily clad. A distressing number of these women are victims of sex trafficking.
Since the beginning of fall, I've been researching and learning about indicators that reveal a woman is being trafficked. For example, if an ad mentions "two girls for the price of one" or "no A.A.," that is a major red flag. Typically, pimps put "no A.A." (African American) in the ad to ward off other pimps. Emojis such as 💃🍒🐰✈️ 👑 are also indicators of trafficking. For example, the plane emoji reveals that the woman is being transported to different cities. One of the biggest indicators of someone being trafficked is if the woman is branded with different tattoos, such as a dollar sign or the name of her pimp. Lastly, it is important to note that an ad stating a woman is "new in town" also indicates she is being trafficked.
Many innocent victims are being pimped and trafficked, facing trauma every day. However, there is a way to fight sex trafficking and identify the victims and predators who exploit these women.
OSINT or Open Source Intelligence can be used to identify the women in escort ads. OSINT utilizes social media, voting records, images, and other available information on the web. I volunteer my time to help identify victims of sex trafficking through the Guardian Group and Skull Games.
While identifying these women, I use various tools to get a real identity on who they are, along with identifying who their pimp could be. After obtaining a correct identity, I write up a report, which then gets passed to law enforcement (LE). OSINT can be a powerful tool in fighting sex trafficking and apprehending pimps and predators.
As a Digital Investigation and Cyber Crime student, I am committed to continuing the fight. To this day, I have identified over ten women and a couple of pimps.
