On Friday, Backpage.com was seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after allegations of facilitating underage pr*stitution and s*x trafficking.
The owners have even given tens of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign, a Nancy Pelosi backed Super PAC, and a plethora of other Democrats over the last few years.
On the Backpage website, a post stated:
backpage.com and affiliated websites have been seized as part of an enforcement action by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, with analytical assistance from the Joint Regional Intelligence Center.
Other agencies participating in and supporting the enforcement action include the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, the office of the California Attorney General, and the office of the Texas Attorney General.
The site has had major scrutiny over the last few years with numerous cases related to Backpage.
The Verge reported, “it facilitated s*x trafficking and pr*stitution through its adult section, a controversy that took years to unwind and culminated in the arrest of the company’s CEO and eventual removal of the adult section.”
According to Reuters:
A Phoenix FBI official said that there was “law enforcement activity” on Friday at the Sedona, Arizona home of Michael Lacey, one of the founders of Backpage.
Lawmakers and enforcement officials have been working to crack down on the site, which is used primarily to sell sx and is the second largest classified ad service in the country after Craigslist.
Launched in 2004, Backpage has affiliates across the country and around the world, and by 2014 brought in annual revenue of $135 million, the New York Times has reported.
The Supreme Court in January 2017 refused to consider reviving a lawsuit against Backpage.com filed by three young women alleging the site facilitated their forced pr*stitution. But the site has since then faced a slew of other lawsuits alleging child s*x trafficking.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has told Congress that nearly three quarters of the cases submitted to the center relate to ads posted on the site. The state of California has said that 90 percent of the site’s income were attributable to “adult ads.
All of this comes at a time when President Trump is fighting back against s*x trafficking in America. At the end of December, the President signed an executive order to block “the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption.”
In the middle of March the President released a statement on the White House website, saying, “My Administration will focus on ending the absolutely horrific practice of human trafficking. And I am prepared to bring the full force and weight of our government, whatever we can do, in order to solve this horrific problem.”
Source: IloveMyFreedom
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