Sex Trade Is A Big Racket For Organized Crime In The United States

Sex trafficking in women and children is the second biggest racket — behind drugs — for organized crime in the United States which provides annual revenue of $9 billion, and the FBI estimates more than 100 criminal groups have their dirty hands in the illicit trade which use strip clubs, massage parlors and Craigslist and other web sites to peddle their product.  In Northeast Ohio local law enforcement and the feds have teamed up to target the racket as reported by Tom Meyer for WKYC:  “Attorney General Richard Cordray said human trafficking is particularly prevalent in Ohio because ‘we are the crossroads of the Midwest’ and victims can be sent to Chicago, Detroit, Canada and the East Coast.” 

Last month the feds indicted a suspected Gambino crime family crew in New York City on prostitution charges that allegedly involved the exploitation of teen girls as young as 15.  The involvement of the Mafia in the sex trade has been widely known ever since Thomas Dewey nailed Lucky Luciano in 1936 for controlling the largest prostitution ring uncovered in American history, and reached its culmination during the 1970s and 1980s when New York City’s crime families controlled the sex industry in Times Square which included gay bars catering to chicken hawks, prostitution rings exploiting teenage runaway girls and smut shops where child pornography was ubiquitous.

Yesterday in Jersey City, NJ a pimp known as Prince was sentenced to 18 years in prison “for leading a prostitution ring built on human trafficking, sex slavery and illegal drug use” as reported by Jeff Pillets for The Record: 

For more than two decades, Allen “Prince” Brown lured women into the sex trades with a mix of narcotics and coercion, authorities said. The houses of prostitution he established in Jersey City were “stables” of strung-out women, who were often locked into rooms and stripped of keys, cellphones and all forms of identity. Brown, who in April pleaded guilty to racketeering and extortion, ran his operation with scores of women he had brought from Camden, Philadelphia, Atlantic City and other communities. * * * Brown’s prostitutes were driven to “tracks” in Jersey City or other locations and were expected to turn a quota of tricks. If they did not make their quota of $500 to $1,000, police said, they were denied drugs or beaten.

According to The Polaris Project “hundreds of thousands of American minors and youth are at risk of being exploited in sex trades.”