AT glitzy sporting events in America’s biggest cities, depraved sex traffickers roam the crowds searching for customers.
From the Las Vegas F1 Grand Prix to the Super Bowl, major competitions where thousands of men gather are a huge win for criminals exploiting vulnerable women to rake in the cash.
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Thanks to the scandal engulfing American rapper Sean Combs, known as Diddy, the curtain is being pulled back on the sex trafficking crisis in the US – revealing Hollywood is just a small cog in a much larger machine.
Three-time Grammy winner Diddy was charged with sex trafficking and racketeering last September over repeated accusations of rape and sexual misconduct dating back to the 1990s.
They include allegations from his former girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura, who claimed she had been raped, trafficked and abused throughout their ten-year relationship.
The hip-hop star, currently being held in a Brooklyn jail, strongly denies the allegations.
He’s due to stand trial in May and is expected to make his next court appearance on March 17.
Campaigners fear his case may just be the “tip of the iceberg” with human trafficking generating a staggering $236.4billion globally – $173billion of that coming from sexual exploitation.
It’s estimated between 15,000 and 50,000 women and children in America become victims of sex trafficking every year – though some studies say the number could be as large as 325,000.
A global study also shows the spread of online abuse, with one in nine American men committing child sexual exploitation offences on the internet.
Speaking to The Sun, Kelsey Morgan, CEO of EverFree, a non-profit supporting trafficking survivors, warns: “It’s happening with your neighbour down the street.
“The people who are purchasing commercial sex are everyday people. They are fathers, doctors, lawyers, business people.
“A lot of the purchasing of commercial sex happens during lunch breaks and right after work.”
Speaking about the Diddy scandal, she added: “This is a story that happened in Hollywood, but that same scenario plays out in every corner of America.”
Rather than conduct business underground, crime bosses are now openly approaching buyers at large sporting events and conferences, Kelsey explains.
The number of visitors “seeking entertainment” surges – providing the perfect opportunity for sick traffickers to strike.
In 2023, police in Vegas made a huge number of arrests as part of a human trafficking crackdown over the F1 weekend.
More than 70 men were snared, aged between 22 and 64.
It’s happening with your neighbour down the street. They are fathers, doctors, lawyers, business people. A lot of the purchasing of commercial sex happens during lunch breaks and right after work
Kelsey Morgan
During an undercover police operation at the San Diego Comic-Con, 14 people were arrested and 10 victims, including a 16-year-old girl, were rescued.
Heather C Fischer, Senior Adviser for Social Impact and Human Rights at Thomson Reuters told The Sun the increase is “largely driven by the high demand” and the “influx of temporary workers and visitors who may be exploited”.
She said: “Human traffickers see the opportunity for illicit financial gain and therefore target the events for significant profits – at a tragic human cost.”
Traffickers “leverage technology, using it to groom, lure and sell victims at the large-scale sporting events”, she added.
This includes ramping up online sex ads – and targeting victims via social media apps.
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At Super Bowl in 2022, 477 arrests were made and 66 adult victims and seven girls were recovered, along with four handguns, Heather said.
At this year’s game, she said campaigners held “one of the largest human trafficking prevention campaigns in Super Bowl history“.
But one of the misconceptions is that victims are foreign nationals.
Kelsey said: “The majority of victims that are identified are actually US-born citizens. It’s really across the country and there are common trafficking routes.
“So where you have sporting events, conferences, you’ll often find traffickers targeting those events to bring people in because they know that there’s a demand for commercial sex there.”
We often think this is something that happens at night under the guise of darkness, but it’s happening right during working hours as well
Kelsey Morgan
Yet it’s not just sporting events that pose a threat.
Krisha Mae, EverFree’s Advocacy and Communications Manager, warned dark web forums and sexual content platforms are making trafficking more prevalent.
She said: “Take the Gisele Pelicot case in France, where her husband was participating in these online forums.
“Just imagine that and multiply it by hundreds and thousands of forums that are interested in exploiting family members, people you know.”
Pelicot’s depraved husband was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for drugging and raping her alongside strangers he recruited online.
‘Tip of the iceberg’
The crisis is so vast that while cities like Atlanta, Houston and Los Angeles are “major metros” for trafficking, other US hotspots may not be known due to poor policing.
“The problem is that what gets identified is the tip of the iceberg,” Kelsey said.
Heather added: “The demand from men for commercial sex is by far the most shocking aspect of sex trafficking in the United States, and this demand, which is very profitable, fuels the illicit industry.”
The demand from men for commercial sex is by far the most shocking aspect of sex trafficking in the United States, and this demand, which is very profitable, fuels the illicit industry
Heather C Fischer
The profitability means exploiters are coming up with new methods, and popular social media sites are helping.
Referring to social media sites like OnlyFans, Krisha said: “The internet has really ramped it up and helped facilitate it in those spaces.
“We’re seeing more sophisticated, more organised and more efficient ways of exploitation being facilitated online through social media, through deep fakes, and blackmailing.”
Buyers will use often sites such as PornHub and OnlyFans on breaks at work to arrange to meet up with a trafficking victim in a hotel room.
Kelsey said: “We often think this is something that happens at night under the guise of darkness, but it’s happening right during working hours as well.”
‘Power and control’
Childlight, a global child safety institute, highlights how common it is for US citizens to prop up the industry – with one in nine American men committing child sexual exploitation offences.
Heather said: “Not every child that is exploited online is trafficked, but almost every victim of child trafficking has been exploited online.”
Young people are typically targeted in this way – with the average age of sex trafficking victims being just 15 years old.
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Explaining how sites like OnlyFans and PornHub can be used in sex trafficking, Krisha said: “He becomes the dream guy, the prince charming.
“He’s love bombing her [victim], becomes everything she’s ever wanted.
“Then he becomes her only source of trust, and she becomes quite dependent on him. He isolates her from all of her support networks.
“This kind of power dynamic gives him the power to make her do something.”
Krisha said the Diddy case is the “perfect example of power and control” where someone lures victims in with hopes of fame, money and other benefits.
“Celebrity is power,” she said.
“It’s those same tactics that traffickers have been using for years and years – just at an extreme level of someone with so much power and the ability to control and then the ability also to threaten.”
The 2024 Dirty Dozen List revealed three of the world’s wealthiest companies profited from sexual exploitation last year.
Apple, Meta, and Microsoft were all named in the list and accused of having “products and policies that are undoubtedly fuelling the child sexual abuse crisis and enabling the proliferation of image-based sexual abuse”.
Other platforms named include LinkedIn, Reddit, Spotify, Telegram, and Discord.
LinkedIn said: “We take proactive steps to find and remove harmful content that violates our policies, including nudity and adult content.“
Microsoft, Meta, Spotify, Reddit and Apple have not commented on the claims when approached by The Sun.
As all eyes turn on Diddy’s upcoming trial, Kelsey said the outcome will be telling.
She said: “What we’ve seen is that the powerful men often walk away free.”
Kelsey used the case of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein as an example – saying many victims feel he was never fully “held accountable for what happened” as he died before trial.
The “very powerful people” allegedly connected to the case were also not held accountable, she said.
Reporting sex trafficking
Heather C Fischer, Senior Adviser, Social Impact & Human Rights at Thomson Reuters told The Sun: “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Blue campaign with their indicators of human trafficking, and the United Nation Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Blue Heart campaign, are dedicated resources providing information and free resources to the public.
“The indicators of human trafficking from DHS and the UNODC can help everyone understand the signs of human trafficking and the action they can take to help report it, whether in the U.S. or around the world.
“The National Center of Missing & Exploited Children’s (NCMEC’s) CyberTip line is America’s centralised reporting system for the online exploitation of children including child exploitation abuse material, child sex trafficking and online enticement.”
Call the National Human Trafficking Hotline toll-free hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text at 233733
In the UK, calls can be made confidentially to the Modern Slavery Helpline on 08000 121 700.
You can also call the relevant emergency number for your country.
“I hope that we don’t see that with this [Diddy] case as well,” Kelsey said.
“If there is not justice, I think there’s going to be quite an uproar for the public, there’s going to be a demand for justice for survivors.
“These big cases help people to see that it’s real.”
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